Sand
by Hoopy Frood No. 42
Summary: In the middle of a case involving Sandmen and slaughtered children a man from Bobs very distant as in mortal past shows up with Plans for something big dangerous and deadly.And it had been such a nice week.Full better sum up inside honest.R R please?
1. Chapter 1

Okay, here is the full summary and a few little explanations...

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine!

Full summary:

It had been a perfectly fine day for Harry. Perfectly fine week, in fact... Until, out of the blue, came Murphy with a case involving Sandmen, (yes, it's plural,) and slaughtered children. Okay, fine. He was sure he could handle this as long as it didn't turn out to be anything really bad and didn't need to invole the Council. It was Jonas he couldn't handle, or in the very least couldn't stand. Jonas, who was somehow here, now, in this time period, looking the same, apparently, as he always had.

Jonas, who had been alive when Bob was.

Who had been Bobs' apprentice.

Who had been the very same man who had cursed him to be what he was.

And only half of his reason was the part Bob _had_ told him about. The other half, now _that_ was something he was kind of confused about. He certainly hadn't expected it.

Oh, and he _hated_ this man. He hated him with venom. And that was even before they found out what he was here for. What he was planning to _do._

Well, this was going to be a fun week. Or month. Or even year, perhaps, he didn't know how long this one would take. And it had all been going so well, too...

And now for the explanations! Yay, explanations! :

Okay, hi there. Yes, I am back, and I am very, very, very sorry for not writing for so long, but I seem to have come to a complete writers block with everything else I have done here. For which I prostrate myself before you and beg for forgiveness. And patience. Patience is good, right?

Now, as far as this here goes, I guess it could have gone well with either the books or the show, but I decided to use the show because, to be frank, I do enjoy the books, but Bob is my favorite character in the show. The books? Not so much. I've just never liked the idea of a talking skull whose jaw moves whenever it speaks. For some reason that has always looked ridiculous to me. And if you look at the show and the books side by side, it's like they're almost two different animals. The books have a lot of kind of unnecesary and often silly bits to them, whereas the show is a bit more beleiveable. Also, Bob isn't so annoying in the show.

Anyways, I digress. This story was something that came up out of nowhere, with nothing to start me off except a sudden idea that refused to leave. I rated it as such to be on the safe side, since I have no idea where I'm going with this at all. I'm just writing as I go along, however my brain sees fit.

For those of you who don't like this sort of thing, this means that, although it isn't a major factor in my idea, it has surfaced up here and there, after which I carefully push it back down and try to move on. The 'this' I'm referring to? Posible m/m thing with Bob and Harry. It won't be prominent if it does worm it's way in here, and will probably only be marginally addressed, but I will let you know it might be there. Emphasis on MIGHT.

This idea sprung up from the weird little other idea I had about Jonas, who, if you've read the summary, is the established villian here. I won't tell you the weirdness, but there you go.

As for my fans who are only reading this because I haven't written anything else lately, if there are any people like that at all, you probably won't have a clue what's going on most of the time unless you've at least read the books or something. Sorry. In regards to my other stuff... Yeah... I have no idea what'll be going on with any of it.

Sorry, again, but that's all I can think to say here. Please enjoy! ~NS~

Sand

ch.1

Bob stood quietly in front of the parlour window, hands clasped behind his back, and studied the stars. He was trying to pick out of his memories all of the constellations and individual stars he remembered the names of, and was wondering if he could teach this to his new apprentice. Who, by the sound of the squeaky floorboard behind him, was trying his best to tiptoe into the room.

"Bob?" he all but whispered.

Bob turned to the thirteen year old and smiled. "Harry? It's late, shouldn't you be in bed?" He was met with an expression that said it all. "Ah. Was your uncle telling you stories again?" Harry nodded. "I see..." Bob crouched in front of him so they were eye to eye and said, "Harry. I assure you, whatever stories Justin has been telling you, none of them are true. He just has bad taste in what to tell children before they go to bed."

"I know, but I still can't sleep..."

"I'm afraid I can't be much use there. Being a ghost isn't all it's cracked up to be at times."

Harry swallowed and said, shyly, "Could I... Maybe bring you upstairs? Just for tonight? And... Maybe you can tell me a better story?"

Bob was touched. This was the first time he had been asked to do this. "Well... I don't see why not."

There was noise in the adjoining room. Justin was talking on the phone, and by the tone of his voice, he was not pleased. Harry jumped at the sound, and, in a second touching gesture, he grabbed Bobs' skull and hugged it tightly against him with both arms backing toward it's usual occupant. His back was inches away from Bobs' front, and he smiled again and looked down at him.

"Harry." Harry tilted his head backward to look up at him. "I believe we were heading upstairs, yes?" He smiled, and it was returned, and then Bob dispersed into his skull and allowed himself to be brought up to the bedroom.

When they got to the door, he noticed they had abruptly stopped moving. He came out and asked Harry what was wrong. He was staring into the room as though afraid to enter. Embarrassed, he looked at Bob, and then back in, in a pointed direction. "Oh, I see. The bed?" A nod. "Alright..." He chuckled, and went in first. Secretly, though, he was a bit miffed at Justin. A boy Harrys' age shouldn't still be afraid of monsters under the bed.

Doing his best not to fall through the floor, which still occasionally happened for some reason, he knelt next to the offending piece of furniture and proceeded to make a small show of looking underneath it for his apprentice, who looked on fearfully from the doorway, still clutching the skull tightly. "Well. There doesn't seem to be anything to worry about. Here, come and see for yourself..."

Very cautiously, Harry moved forward. "Are you sure?"

"There isn't anything here except some lint and a few of your toys, Harry. Honest."

Harry looked, and was shocked to see Bob suddenly cry out and disappear underneath the bed. "Bob?" he cried, and backed away.

After a second, he felt inclined to look under the bed himself, if only to find out where Bob had gone, and what, if anything, had taken him. He wondered how he could make it give him back...

And then, yelling a fake roar, Bob jumped out at Harry, who yelped, leaped backward, and then started laughing. Bob, laughing with him, said, "You see? Nothing to be afraid of." And had to hide a brief pang of sadness when he realized he felt he should hug the boy, but knew he couldn't. "Now," he said, "Up you get." He stood, and let Harry climb into bed and pull the covers up, curling around Bobs' skull as though it were some kind of morbid teddy bear, and waited for him to get comfortable. Once he had, he asked him what sort of story he'd like to hear.

"One about a dragon!"

"Oh, really? A dragon, eh?"

"And knights."

"Alright, then. Good dragon or bad dragon?"

Harry contemplated this. "Two. One good and one bad."

He laughed. "Really? Alright..." And he began his story.

And, as the first few rays of sunlight hit the thirty-odd year old Harry Dresden, he woke with a grunt from this pleasant dream.

X

Someone was pounding on his door downstairs. He looked at the clock. Seven in the morning. "Ugh..."

"Oh, come, now, Harry, it's about time you started getting up earlier," said a familiar voice, traveling from somewhere downstairs.

"I wanna know who it is before I even open my eyes, Bob."

"If I know that tone of voice, I believe it's Murphy."

"Ah, crap..."

"Harry! I know you're in there! Come on!" Murphy was calling. Apparently, she was already in an unpleasant mood, or she wouldn't be this persistent.

He rolled out of bed and called down, "Yeah, yeah! Come on in!" He waved a hand and unlocked the door, not caring if she noticed this or not.

"I can't, Harry, the door's – locked..." It swung open when she rattled the handle. "Okay, maybe not..."

"Uh, yeah, the catch has been giving me issues, I keep forgetting to get it fixed..." Harry lied as he came down the stairs, trying to look as awake as possible.

"Uh-huh, sure. Wake yourself up. I have a case for you."

"What, you mean you didn't come down just to see me? Ah, Murph...".

"Save it, Harry. And would you mind at least washing your face or something, you look like you ran into a brick wall."

"Sure, hang on." He went to the bathroom and almost laughed at his reflection. He had apparently been sleeping face down, he really did look as though he'd run into a wall. So he splashed some water on himself, used some of it to at least attempt to make his hair lay back in a more presentable manner, and returned to his front room, talking to Murphy while heading toward the kitchen for some coffee.

"So, what's up? Something gruesome?" He turned to look at her, mug in hand, and immediately regretted saying this. That face? Something gruesome, alright.

She brandished a manilla folder. "What do you know about people dying in their sleep?"

He blinked. "Huh?"

"People, Harry. Dying in their sleep, from inside locked rooms, that were fine when they were last checked on."

"Uh... Medical issues? Are you sure this one's for me?"

She threw the folder on the table in front of him. "Read the damn file, Harry."

Giving her a confused look, he turned to said file and opened it. He felt something in him go cold when he saw the first picture.

"Jennifer Marcus. She was six years old," Murphy supplied.

"Wha –"

"Keep looking."

He didn't want to, but he did. Next up was the scene. "Oh, Jesus..."

"Not pretty, Is it?"

"What happened to her?" he said, shocked, "What does the autopsy say?"

"It's on the next page. Some sort of very thin, very strong weapon was used, they think it resembles some sort of wire trap. The kind sick people use to slice up bodies."

"And someone did this to a _kid_? She's just a baby!"

"She was the seventh victim."

"Oh, God."

"Yeah. So, either Freddy's real and he's bored with screaming, half naked teens, or there's some sick bastard out there who's getting away with this if we don't get your help."

"I don't know what I can do about an actual real version of a horror movie monster, Murph. Besides, isn't there a way you're supposed to bring him out and kill him in the real world? I shouldn't need magic for that."

"Stop making jokes, Harry, this isn't the time. I've been working on this for a while, now, and frankly, I'm tired of seeing little dead children every other day or so. Just get dressed. I'll bring you to the latest scene and see what you make of it."

"Yeah, alright." And with that, he turned and went back to his room, gathered some clothes, went to the bathroom to change, since Murphy could just look up and see him if he changed in his room, and prepared himself for what he already knew was gonna be hell.


	2. Chapter 2

Hi there! I haven't bothered to check on this for a while now, and honestly I thought it wasn't going to interest anyone, but since I have at least a couple of readers I will continue, if only because I don't want to disappoint anyone. Thank you very much! Here you go!

ch. 2

"So. What's the story?" They drove along in silence for a few seconds before Murphy answered him. There was a lot less traffic today than usual.

"We aren't sure yet, exactly."

He looked at her, confused. "With all this?" he said, gesturing to the file, now in his lap and being sifted through.

"What I mean is that despite how bad the scenes are, there's literally no evidence anyone else was ever even in the room at the time of death."

"What, like... traps were set up in the room from somewhere else?"

"We aren't even sure it can be called a trap."

This was perplexing... "How can that be?"

"You tell me."

"Well, I can't until we get there, so you might as well tell me all you know now so I have some ideas of what to go on."

"I was getting to that."

"Okay, let me have it."

"Every time the kids have died, they've been in their own rooms, no one else there, with the windows locked. There aren't any signs of forced entry, there or anywhere else in the house."

"Okay, that's weird..."

"And they all die while fast asleep. Usually in the REM stage."

"Isn't that a band?"

"Not funny."

"Sorry. Couldn't help it."

She chose to refrain from commenting further on this, and continued. "In all cases, the kids die violently, but from the way the blood spreads and settles, they haven't even twitched out of a sleeping position, and they were never off the bed."

"Huh." He flipped through a few more pictures and tried to ignore the slight nausea that some of them caused.

Murphy looked as though she were thinking about something, and when he asked her about it, she said, "There's also something even stranger to this. I don't know if the others consider it important yet, or even if they all know about it, but I've noticed it, and it kinda gives me the creeps."

"What?"

She sighed, took a breath, and when they stopped at a red light she looked over at him and said, "Every one of those kids had some strange conversations with their parents about a sandman before hand."

This made Harry look up with concern. "Sandman?" Oh, that was not good...

"Yeah. Just ask someones' mom or dad, they all tell the same story. Their kid would say they were talking to the sandman at night."

Shit.

"Harry?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. Just thinking."

"Okay. We're here."

As they pulled up to an apartment complex taped off and blocked by squad cars, he closed the folder and started unbuckling himself before they had even come to a full stop and was out the car door as soon as they did. He stood there and looked up and around at all the windows of the building.

"It's this way." She told the troopers by the tape that Harry was with her, and they were ushered through and toward the building.

Harrys' mind was already running almost to overload. Sandman... He knew about the sandman, or men, rather, and didn't like the sound of this at all. The thing that confused him the most, however, was the fact that there had never been any trouble with sandmen like this before. So what had triggered this now?

He could already smell the blood before they were even on the right floor.

This was not going to be pretty.

When they got to the apartment, they were greeted by at least seven cops going through the place, and a sobbing woman collapsed on the couch, too upset to even properly answer the questions she was being asked. He had to give the guy interviewing her credit, though, usually cops were a bit impatient with this sort of thing, but this one was doing his best to calm her down before pressing any major inquiries on her. Then again, he didn't know how long they'd been here.

Three men were bringing a stretcher with a blanket pulled over it through the room. The woman on the couch burst into even more hysterics as it was rushed past her, a few drops of blood dripping onto the carpet. And then he felt it. As the body was rushed by, there was a chill. Not the type of chill that always came with these situations, but a really, really bad chill, one that Harry knew only he could feel. He stared at the retreating group. Something was very, very wrong.

"Harry?" Murphys' voice cut into his thoughts.

Without taking his eyes off of where the stretcher had left, he said hoarsely, "Which room?"

"Don't you want to –"

"Which. Room." And now he looked at her, and he didn't know what his face looked like to her, but it clearly wasn't something she found pleasant.

"It's this one," she said uncertainly, and led him on. He stopped in the doorway, and felt an atmosphere that was not normal for a childs' bedroom. It looked like a bedroom a small kid would sleep in, aside from the newly spread blood, but it didn't _feel_ like one anymore. And it was for more reasons than the obvious.

"Murphy," he said quietly, not looking at her, but at the room itself, taking in every detail he could see with the naked eye, "Tell me the story all the parents talk about. Obviously the mother here isn't going to be much help."

Somehow, she understood that this was not to be argued with. So she told him. "They all say that for about two or three weeks prior to what happened, their son or daughter told them a nice man had spoken to them overnight and that he called himself the sandman."

"And?" He hadn't moved.

"And that the children in question start to look healthier than they had before. Not that they were unhealthy before, because they never say anything about that, but just that for the first few nights they look even _more_ healthy. Then all of a sudden it starts deteriorating. They think the child gets a cold, but then it just gets worse and worse. They start saying they're afraid to go to bed, but they won't say why. And they just get even more ill until... This happens."

"It's the same way every time? It keeps looking like they were strung up and then cut into pieces with the same object?"

"Yeah."

"Does it look like it happens all at once, or one slice at a time?"

"All at once. Like they walked into a sharp net. I told you that."

"Just confirming it," he said, and then went silent, searching around the room. What for, he didn't know, but he was hoping to be able to tell when he saw it.

"Are you okay?"

"I need these guys out for a few minutes. You too. I need to concentrate." The guys in question were the remaining forensics team, who, used to him by now, had easily ignored this whole exchange, focusing only on their work of extracting any evidence.

"Don't you want to know something about the kid first?"

"Yeah, sure, tell me."

Murphy chose to refrain from retorting to this, and instead told him it was a nine year old boy named Timothy. His mother was a nurse, and not the woman on the couch. That was his babysitter, Ashley, who had been asked to watch the boy while his mother worked. She was on her way back now.

"Okay. Get them out for a sec, please."

"Harry..."

"Get them _out, _Murphy."

With a sort of confused but resigned sigh, she asked the team if they could step out for a couple of minutes, just until Harry could finish whatever he was about to do. He waited until the door closed behind them, and then, carefully, he walked over to the bed and looked it over, just with his eyes, not touching anything for a few moments. He walked around it, carefully examining it from different angles.

It was clear that he'd been in the middle of the bed. There was a sort of outline of the kids' body where he had been lying with his arms outspread, like he had been crucified. Or at least what was left of the spot told him so. With the amount of blood that had spread out around him and leaked in under him, it was hard to tell.

He looked at the walls. If the boy had died lying down in such a way, without moving at all, then the blood would be only on the bed, wouldn't it? So why was it spread around the walls like this? That would indicate that he had at least been held up in the air by someone... He went back to the end of the bed and looked at the wall across from it, next to the closet. There was no indication that someone had been standing here, or at any other angle. Wherever the blood had sprayed, it was all over whatever it had hit, with no gaps indicating a person or otherwise standing in it's way.

"Alright.. Guess I'll have to look into this a bit harder," he muttered to himself, then checked that no one was coming in, and carefully removed a crystal from his pocket, which he had grabbed on the way out of his apartment when Murphy was looking the other way. He touched it to some of the blood, lifted it again, and waited. No change. Not black magic, and not Thaumaturgy. Good. Very good. Or, perhaps, not good at all, but still. At least he could rule that out. Turning to further examine the scene, crystal still held out just in case, he noticed something he should have noticed before, and it made him freeze.

The closet door was ajar.

There was blood there, certainly, but it had never gone past the door, which suggested that it had been closed at the time of the death. If Murphys' guys had looked in the closet, or been looking in it when he came in, they would have left it open when they left the room, not ajar, as though it had been carefully closed as such to avoid someone noticing something exactly like this.

He should ask. He definitely should ask. But he didn't. Instead, he slowly took out his wand, and just as slowly moved toward the door. Closets. He had never, ever, liked closets, and if he slept in a room with one in it, he had made sure it was closed, with something keeping it shut, while he slept. Even into adulthood. It was something he had never been able to force himself to grow out of.

Holding his wand in front of him, he used his foot to open the closet the rest of the way, and looked around inside it. The crystal started humming. Not turning colors, or anything like that, just... humming. This was something he had never experienced before, and had never heard of prior to this. He had been holding it loosely by his side until this began, after which he looked down at it and lifted it up so as to get a better look. It kept right on humming, too, getting stronger the closer he brought it to the back wall of the space. He didn't like this idea in the least, particularly the unfamiliarity of it all. He hoped Bob could explain this one when he got back.

So it didn't like the wall? What could that possibly— "Harry?" He jumped, in spite of himself, and then sighed and relaxed a bit when it turned out just to be Murphy checking on him. "What the hell are you doing?" she continued, now standing in the entrance to the closet.

"Uh... Nothing, Murph, just... You know, looking over the scene." She backed up and gestured at him to come out, which he did, carefully pocketing the crystal while she wasn't looking, and tried to ignore how warm it suddenly felt.

"In the closet?"

"Uh, yeah," he said as he came out, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.

"Why?"

"Uh, just, uh, you know. Just in case there was something there, or... Whatever."

"Uh huh."

"Yup."

"And?"

"I'm... not actually sure."

"Tell me you're not serious. You just had enough time to look over the whole crime scene, and you aren't sure?"

"Well, I just mean I'm not sure about the closet thing. I can give you at least a little insight on the rest of it, though."

"Good. Gimme," she said, getting into a sort of 'I'm listening now' position.

He scoffed a bit. "Gimme? What are you, five or something?"

"Harry..."

"Right, yeah, okay. Well... You were right, there wasn't anybody in this room at the time of death. That much is clear. As far as I can tell, this could have been done from outside of the room, or possibly somewhere entirely different. As for the Sandman thing, that kind of confuses me. There've never been any problems with him as far as I know of, he's usually just exactly as people think he is. He comes in, tosses sand into peoples' eyes, and leaves. So it could be we're looking at some sort of demon posing as him."

"A demon? You expect me to tell my superiors that this is a demon?"

"Well, you don't _have_ to tell them that. I'm sure for now they can handle a little uncertainty."

"Uh, no, Harry, they can't."

Not knowing exactly how to respond to this, he simply settled for continuing on. "Look, I just said it _might_ be a demon, I didn't say it definitely was one, okay?"

"Well, okay, fine, then what else could it be?"

He hesitated. "Ah. You, you want to know what... _else_ it could be, well, uh... well... I mean, it uh, ahem, it could be... a..." He paused. "Okay, look, I have no idea what else it could be, but—"

"_Harry!_"

"_But, _if you would just give me a few days to find out, I can come back to you with whatever I get, Murphy, honest."

"But I need something to tell them besides, oh, Harry thinks it's a demon, they aren't going to be happy with that, Dresden!"

"Yeah, I get it, Murphy, believe me, I get it, but I need to figure something out before I can give you any definite answers, which, like I said, I will give you as soon as I get them. Honest."

"I hope so, Harry, or it's gonna be my ass they chew out."

After further reassurance on Harrys' part, and further 'you'd better's' from Murphy, Harry was finally allowed to go home, opting to take a cab rather than make her drive him back, thus avoiding any further protests. She had let him take the files home to use as needed, and he glanced through them again on the way.

This was going to be a very long night. Week, if the unfamiliar territory was any indication. And lately things had been going so well...


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, so here's the third chapter! Yay! This one was already written down, as were the previous two, I just needed to finish this one. I can't tell when the next one will be up though, since I haven't started it yet, so please be as patient as you can, okay? :) I'm trying to go past about twelve or thirteen chapters before I get blocked up again, which seems to be the limit to what my brain can achieve in one go, so hopefully this won't be a story stopped in the middle! Thanks for reading, enjoy!

ch. 3

Sandmen. Referred to as such because even in the Nevernever, not all creatures could travel everywhere all at once to do their jobs. Except, or course, Santa, but that was a whole different story and was definitely not relevant here. There were seven Sandmen. They didn't really have any individual personalities, and were all androgynous, meaning none of them were clearly of either gender. The men part of their name was by default. Normally, they were harmless. No one knew exactly why they did what they did, but they knew it got done. There was always the possibility that they came into existence simply by being created by human minds, which could very well cause things to exist simply by thinking they do. It was a complicated explanation as to how.

So... the Sandmen. This was a new one.

He was calling for Bob before he finished getting his coat off, and almost walked through him when he showed up. "Yes?"

"I got a question for ya."

"Oh, really? Something intriguing, perhaps?" he asked as they made their way to the lab.

"Possibly."

"Very well, then, fire away."

When they got to the lab, Harry took the crystal out of his pocket and checked to make sure there was still blood on it, then placed it on the table, turning to his bookshelves. "What do you know about the Sandmen?"

Bob looked confused about this, but said, "Sandmen. Group of... seven beings from the Nevernever, no apparent goal or even apparent gender, usually quite peaceful, but I should hope whatever case you've been given has something to do with them, because I'd really like to think that you wouldn't be bringing them up without reason."

He stopped pulling out books, leaned on the table, looked at him and dropped the bomb. "What do you know about them killing little kids while they sleep? Or visiting them in their dreams?"

Bob raised his eyebrows. "Well, now, _that _seems highly unlike them."

"That's what I was thinking. According to the files, though, that seems to be the case."

"I can't really think of a reason why they would do that... Are you sure it's one or all of them?"

"It sounds like it is. Have we got any books that might say why?"

"Try the ones on the fifth shelf to your left. Are these the case files?"

Harry glanced at the folder Bob had been referring to. "Yup." He waved his hand a couple of times so the folder opened on it's own and the pages and pictures spread out, letting Bob have a look while he rummaged through the volumes. "See anything interesting?"

"Gruesome. Very gruesome... And how many have been killed?"

"Eight including the newest one. The boy on top of the pile."

"More killings than there are Sandmen, then."

"Yeah. Would it have been important if it wasn't?"

"Well, maybe, but since it isn't we probably won't know..."

"Alright, let's see if this helps," Harry said, bringing over a large, thick book bound in black leather. It had several different bookmarks sticking out of it at random intervals. He selected one of these, and from that part, flipped through a few pages. "Okay... Sandmen, Sandmen... Ah, okay, here. Uh, the idea of the Sandman comes from the Greek and Roman god, Hypnos, or Somnus, who has three sons named Morpheus, Phoebetor, and Phantasus, yatta yatta, uh... he helps people to sleep by either touching their eyelids or fanning them with his wings... Uh, for those of other religions, this became the Sandman, who causes the sand in the corners of sleepers' eyes. Right, dreams, dreams, dreams... Okay, it doesn't say anything about the Sandman being able to enter dreams, but it... _does _say that the sons of Hypnos have some influence over what the sleeper sees and what their dreams are for..."

"Yes, I believe it was originally interpreted that the dreams could be used to either entertain or punish the sleeper, except in certain cases where I believe it was Morpheus who used these dreams as omens... were the children asleep at the time of death?" As he spoke, Bob moved to look at the pictures a bit closer from another angle, confusion on his face.

"Yep."

"Why, then, were the eyes of one of these children open?"

"I... What?" Harry came over and looked at the picture Bob was pointing to, and saw he was right. He picked it up. "Murphy never said anything about this."

"Well, I suppose she might not have noticed. They are, in fact, opened, but only about half way. They could have closed completely during either examination or transport."

"Yeah, that's true..." He sat down, looking at the picture. "So... At least this girl here was awake when she died?" That was somehow even worse.

"Yes... Or, perhaps, in the process of waking up?"

"Maybe..."

"Hm. Dreadful. Do we know anything about the time between each death at all, or anything similar to that nature?"

"I checked the reports for that in the cab. It looks like they all died within a few weeks of each other, and they all seem to be in a pretty wide radius. I think if we pinpoint the area that's most concentrated we can figure something out, but that's how they'll investigate it at the precinct, so that's probably already been done... Oh, yeah, here... Huh."

"Yes?"

"They don't look very concentrated at all..."

"Well, perhaps we're dealing with a... clever criminal?"

"That would be hard to deal with. It might be a serial killer, but if this is how they kill, there must be a reason, right?"

"And there is the question. _Why_?"

Harry shrugged, considered his options, and then decided on the one thing he had preferred not to decide on in the first place, seeing as he didn't appear to have a choice. "Well... We could just... ask them."

Bob gave him a look, but Harry was already looking through the books.

X

Three hours and two attempts later, there were seven faceless, gray people standing in a chalk circle. They didn't look at all like what you would expect a Sandman to look like.

One of them spoke, although that word was very loosely used. There was no specific tone or even sound to the voice. When they spoke, you didn't hear it, you thought it. You simply became aware that words had been addressed to you, and answered.

Why have you summoned us?

"I have a question, if you don't mind. There've been some strange things occurring around here lately, and I just wanted to know if you knew anything about what's going on."

Why would we know?

"It's been suggested that you do."

Very well. Ask.

"There have been children dying while they sleep, and all of them had been telling their parents that they were speaking to a Sandman in their dreams for about a week or two prior to their deaths. Do you know anything about this?"

We have heard of this happening, but we are not the ones committing these crimes.

"But you do know about them? Do you have any idea who might be posing as one of you at all?"

There are many who can change their shape in our world. Perhaps it may be one of them, but whether this is a definite is uncertain.

"I see."

There have, however, been some noticeable disturbances in the land of Dreams. As a group of those who walk through it, we have noticed. Is this helpful?

"It could be, if you know where they're coming from. Or what's been causing them."

We do not. All we can surmise is that it is not caused by a creature of our world, but a creature who has been avoiding it for many an age.

"What, you mean, like, a fugitive?"

No. The creature in question has not been held captive by anything, which would create the definition of a fugitive. That is what they have been avoiding.

"Okay..."

We are afraid we cannot be of any further use in this matter.

"Oh, that's fine, thank you very much for your help. Is there anyone else you might suggest we speak with? Anyone who might know more?"

We shall see what can be done. We will find a way to contact you if there is anything else worth noting. We do not appreciate being accused of crimes we did not commit.

"That's perfectly understandable. Thank you very much again. Uh..." He looked around for the book he used for the summoning, so he could figure out how to dismiss them properly. He had had to summon things before, but he was a little rusty on creatures of the cosmos.

Bob, who had been standing nearby, sighed. "Harry, all you need to do is give them permission to leave. There aren't any special circumstances."

"Oh! Okay, right, sorry... Uh, you guys can leave now, no problem. Thanks again."

They nodded as one and dispersed.

"Well, that was creepy..." Harry said, and quickly went about dismantling the summoning circle. "I'm surprised they were so cooperative. Usually you summon creatures of the cosmos, and they bitch and moan about it, or they want something in return."

"Yes, but they were created by humans, and as such, they have some human emotions. Also, when it comes to such things, people do not tend to imagine cruel creatures. Very rough around the edges of the circle, by the way, you should be careful next time."

"I always like to hope there isn't a next time, Bob." And then there was a sword at his throat. Ah, shit.

"That's very good to hear, Dresden," said Morgan, and walked around to face him.


	4. Chapter 4

Hi again!I decided to write some more 'bout stuff! The problem is, though, I don't know what exactly to write lately unless I think about it whilst I write this, so... It might be good, or it might be something that takes me days and days to write and come out sounding weird, if it doesn't already. Also, I just came back from a week long family reunion in P-Town in Cape Cod! So that explains some of the delay, though I must admit, the other weeks are all my own brains' fault... But I'm sure you guys don't mind... Right? Anyways... Continuation!

ch. 4

"Morgan..."

"Do not tempt me, Dresden. Either explain yourself, or you know what will happen."

"You can't even cut me a little slack, Morgan? After everything?"

"That's not a part of this arrangement. Speak."

Harry sighed. "Alright, but could you at least just back off some? So I don't need to stand here with my hands up like an idiot?"

Morgan considered this, but what he considered never showed up on his face. It remained blank, which, more or less, was probably a good thing. He lowered his sword, but barely backed off, so Harry stepped back instead. "I'm listening."

"Thank you. Look, the reason why I summoned those guys was because of a case. We needed to ask them some things."

"What could anyone possibly ask of a group of creatures like those?"

"It's about the murders that have been happening."

"The murders?"

"Yeah, those kids."

And that's when it hit him. The expression of complete confusion on Morgans' face. "What children?"

He stared. "You can't be serious."

"I don't often joke, Dresden. What children?"

Now both of them were staring at him in equal confusion. It was Bob who spoke first, though, although he usually preferred to wait until Morgan or anyone else of a higher position spoke to him first. "You mean to say that the Council knows nothing about what's going on? The children, the murdered children? You haven't heard?"

"No," Morgan said as Bob finished, "I haven't heard anything about this." He lowered part of his guard, though never the whole thing, and continued, concern lacing his voice. "You mean something has been going on off the radar?"

"Apparently," Harry said

"What exactly is it that makes this case one the Council should know about?"

Bob told him, with slight uncertainty as to whether or not he should, occasionally glancing in Harrys' direction. "There have been eight children murdered while they slept. All sings point to something of a magical nature, though what kind of magic is very difficult to ascertain."

"What kind of signs?"

"Look, Morgan," Harry began, "If you guys don't know anything about this, then just let me finish taking care of it, we can—"

"Absolutely not, Dresden. Not until I get an answer. Now tell me what's been going on."

Here Harry felt a bit annoyed with himself, but sighed and said, "We... Don't know. Exactly." Morgan took a breath through his nose and gave him a look, but before he could say anything, Harry interrupted him. "But we're trying to find out, alright? I only just got the files, I just got back from the scene a few hours ago, and I'm still working on it! Alright?"

Morgan looked between them and gave a one word demand. "Address."

"Morgan—"

"Give me the address, Harry."

With a disgruntled shrug, he said, "Why? I haven't even told you anything about it."

"So that I can make my own observations."

"Oh, so what're you gonna do, Morgan, huh? Just walk right into a crime scene? Right past the guards, the kids' mom? You gonna just, just tell them you're a cop?"

"I have ways of being undetected, Dresden, as you well know."

"And you're gonna go there and look things over before I've told you what I noticed."

"Fine. What have you noticed?"

He looked at him for a minute, continuing to be annoyed. Finally, he gave in. "Alright, well... Well, the blood says no known form of magic has been used, but a few things say that it was definitely _some _kind of magic."

"And?" Morgan was not pleasant to deal with when angered.

"And... It was definitely done through the kids' dreams. Or at least that's what the Sandmen suggested."

"_And?_"

"And... And that's, that's it right now."

"Harry, if you're keeping something from me, I will not be pleased."

"Look, you wanted to draw your own conclusions, draw them, okay? I told you everything important, and you'll probably figure it all out when you get there, you want the address? Here," he said, and gave him the address. "Go figure it out. Although if the Council doesn't know about it, then it might be something smaller than it appears, or you aren't going to find anything out on your own."

"If you are suggesting we work together on this case..."

"I'm not suggesting anything like that, Morgan, but if you think so, then we might as well, shouldn't we? Being in the position I'm in right now, it should be easier for me to get info than it would be for you, right?"

Morgan looked at him for a very long time, before stating simply, "I will make my own decisions about that."

"Morgan—"

But he was gone.

"Does he have to keep doing that?"

"Well, everyone has their perks," Bob said, and sighed. "What do you propose we do now?"

Harry shrugged. "I... I dunno, I guess we should just keep going over evidence?"

"Then lets do."

"Okay, right, then, let's keep doing that." Together they went back to the lab and continued to pour over what information they had gotten from both the police files and the Sandmen, adding in what Harry had discovered at the scene.

"So. We know that at least there does seem to be something supernatural going on here, we just can't pinpoint what it is exactly."

"Yes, but it does seem to have something to do with the dream plains, though that has yet to be determined as well, if we are to trust the Sandmen."

"Well, there isn't anything that says they can't be trusted."

"Hm, and nothing to say they can be either, so—" Bob stopped talking suddenly, and slowly straightened up from the position he'd been in, bent over the crime scene photos again. He looked slightly uncomfortable all of a sudden, his brow furrowed. He even looked as though he couldn't stand straight. Blinking, he shook his head, the way one does to clear it when they unexpectedly feel dizzy.

"Bob?" Harry said, concern in his tone. He held out his hands to steady him, feeling useless when he remembered he couldn't really do that.

But the feeling seemed to have passed. "I'm... Sorry, Harry, I... Felt sort of foggy there for a moment."

"Foggy? Like, what, you're gonna pass out or something? Can that happen to you?"

"Apparently, although I must admit, it's never happened before... Er, in any case, where were we?"

But Harry couldn't stop looking at his friend. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Of course, Harry, nothing to worry about. It's probably simply some sort of after effect caused by the Sandmen being here or some such thing." He smiled. "No need to panic."

"Okay..." Harry said, though he still felt unsure. "Uh... Well, I think we should trust them and it'll be fine. They don't exactly have any reason to lie to us."

"No, I suppose not... By the way, did you notice anything particularly unusual there? Anything Morgan might notice?"

Harry thought for a minute. "Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." He went to the crystal and picked it up, looking at it, and then holding it up casually by the string attached to it. "For some reason, while I was in there this started ringing. It didn't glow or anything like that, it just started humming. It started when I was near the closet, so I went inside there, and it kept humming even louder the closer I got to the back wall." He stopped and thought for a second. "Actually, come to think of it, I don't think it stopped even after I put it back in my pocket, when Murphy showed up. But she didn't mention it."

"Perhaps she couldn't hear it? Odd..."

"Yeah... What made you think of that, anyways?"

"Hm? Oh, just a... Casual question, is all. After all, Morgan has just gone off to the scene."

"Right..." Harry looked carefully at Bob again, who simply looked back. "Are you absolutely sure you're alright?"

"Harry, I appreciate the concern, but I really am quite fine."

"Okay... Look, I'm gonna go find out if I can find someone who can help us out with some things here. I think I'm gonna see if Chris is in town, get him to check the Archives just in case we're missing something, okay?"

"Yes, alright."

"'Kay. See if you can think of some things, too." He grabbed his coat, and was just about to leave when Bob spoke again.

"Harry? Please be careful." His voice was oddly soft.

He looked at him in confusion. It might not have been so confusing if this had been said to him before in such a simple and completely non-threatening situation. But he wasn't running out the door in pursuit of something big and nasty, there had been no threats made... In this type of scenario, no. That had never been said. "What?"

"Just... In case. You know Chris keeps odd company."

Well, that was certainly true, but even so... "Sure. Okay." And, still confused, he slowly went out the door, paused outside it, shook his head, and moved on.

Inside, Bob finally let his expression go back to the same confused one he had worn when he had gone, as he had told Harry, foggy. Something had triggered a reaction in him that he had never before had as a... whatever he was now. He felt he was never quite dead, but never quite alive, either, and he was certianly no form of _un_dead... A proper word had never seemed to cross his mind.

But what he had felt had caused something else to happen as well. All outside sound had muffled. His vision had gone not quite black, but too dark to be called gray. And there had been another voice drifting to him. He could not understand what it had said, but it certainly wasn't Harrys' voice...

In fact, it had sounded startlingly like a voice he had not heard in, quite literally, ages.

He stood in the room, and was very suddenly, well... _afraid._

_Oh, God, _he thought. _If this is to happen again, please don't harm Harry... Please..._


	5. Chapter 5

Hello my lovely, albeit few, which is understandable, fans! This is the new chapter! Get ready because I'm going for a little action sequence here... Huzzah! Enjoy! Also, I have never been in a bar before, so the depiction of one that's in this chapter is something I got from TV! Woot!

ch.5

Harry felt uncomfortable. He didn't think Bob was as fine as he claimed to be, and he didn't like the fact that he was so reluctant to tell him what was really wrong. He had always thought that Bob would tell him something like that, he had always told him if something was wrong before...

Then again, he had never had that reaction to anything before, either, had he?

Accidentally bumping into someone jolted him back to reality. He apologized and went back to focusing on what was around him. He was here trying to find information as to where Chris was.

Right. Chris. Chris was... Strange. Not that Harry had anything against someone being strange — He actually got along much better with strange people than he did with normal ones and got along with Chris just fine — But he was. He was strange.

Chris had no last name. Since it was such a common name, it was hard to ask where he was unless you knew the right people. Lucky for Harry, he knew plenty of the right people. Of course, he also knew plenty of the wrong people, but that was something that came with the job, wasn't it?

Chris had no last name because, put simply, he was an Elf. Or, perhaps, a Faye, he wasn't sure which. He had pointed ears, though. In any case, Chris was not his real name, and had never been. No one Harry had ever met knew his real name.

Chris worked for the Council because of some sort of debt that he had been too polite to ask about, and they kept him on what was supposed to be a tight leash. He wouldn't really call it tight, since the only time they ever tightened it was when he acted up, but that turned out to be quite often. Being whatever he was, he had a slight disregard for human rules, and had a 'mightier-than-thou' attitude sometimes, but he had never done anything to Harry in the four years that they had known one another, and so as far as he was concerned, he was a decent guy. It wouldn't be hard to get him to look into the Records, either, because he enjoyed doing unauthorized checks. The Council couldn't exactly tell when someone was checking without their permission. It was something they had, for some reason, chosen to overlook. And he never went weird about it, either. Because of whatever powers his race possessed, he only had to close his eyes and concentrate for a moment, and then he was there, or at least half there. He would ask questions about what exactly you wanted to find, and would occasionally lick a finger and turn some invisible pages in front of his face. It was much more comfortable than waiting until someones' eyes rolled back out of their heads.

And now, here he was, looking around for a familiar face, in a bar. He never really went to bars, because you could run into all sorts of trouble in them, but this was where he had last met some friends of Chris who would always know where he was. Man, he felt awkward. Looking for these people took skills he couldn't use very obviously in a crowded area. Luckily, on this occasion he didn't really need to use them, he'd just been told where to go.

"Harry!" a voice called from a smoky part of the room.

Harry went to it, squinting through all the smoke, this being the smoking section, and found the owner of the voice. It was a twenty-something blond who looked about fifteen. Her name was Jenna. She also had a crush on him, and refused to hear his words about how he liked her, but not that way. This was a girl who had had countless boyfriends, slept with them all, left after a few bangs and some laughs, and would have a new one by next week, who she was also banging, possibly at the same time as the last one. Her definition of crush was just wanting to sleep with him, and while most men might enjoy that prospect, it wasn't for him.

"Hey, Jen," he said, and reluctantly went deeper into the smoke. He could barely breathe.

"Why don't you sit down, handsome, and have some drinks with us, huh?" As she said this, she took a drink from the hand of a middle-aged, gray-haired man on whose lap she was partially seated, took a sip from it, and then put it back in his hand, giving him a sultry smile before returning her attention to Harry.

"Uh, nah, not right now, I have some stuff to take care of." He coughed and tried to wave away some of the the smoke. Smoking didn't bother him very much, this being Chicago and all, but when there was this much of it in the air, it irritated him.

"Aw, come on, it can't wait 'till tomorrow?"

"Nope, it can't. Sorry. Big case."

"Oh, a cop, huh? Must be nice," said the older man.

"It, uh, has it's perks," he answered, not caring about telling him he had been wrong.

"Must get ya a lotta girls, am I right?"

"Uh, sorta."

"So you're here on cop business, then?" Jenna said, and pouted, trying to look cute.

"Afraid so."

"Fine," she said with a sigh, "What's up?"

"Um... Do you... Know where Chris is today? I asked around, but no one else seems to know."

This was true. He had, in fact, asked three other people today, all of whom had pointed to the next person.

"Ugh, Chris? All the time you come to me it's about Chris. Don't you ever want to see me?"

"Sure, but I never really have the time." Only a partial truth.

"Got a girlfriend?"

"Y — Yeah." And, full lie. He hoped she didn't ask who.

She sighed again. "Liar... Fine, he was looking for you earlier anyways. He gave me this to give to you if you asked." With no trace whatsoever of modesty, she reached into her already low cut shirt collar, rummaged around for a second, which made him decide very carefully not to wonder why she needed to do that, and eventually pulled out a slightly warm, folded piece of paper. "Here ya go, hun," she said sweetly, and handed it to him.

"Uh... thanks." He carefully took it and put it in his pocket so he could read it when he could see. "I better go now, see you."

"Later." And with that she turned her attention once again to the man on whose lap she was seated, who whispered something Harry couldn't hear very close to her ear that made her laugh. She tapped his nose.

Rolling his eyes, he turned and made his way as best he could to the non-smoking section, then outside, where he took a gulp of fresh air. It was getting dark. Shaking his head, he gingerly opened the folded piece of paper and read what was written on it. An address, and a message that he would know when he showed up. Huh. He had never known Chris to be clairvoyant before. Was there something he needed to know? Shrugging it off, he went about his way.

X

A little over an hour later, he stood looking up in front of him and then back at the paper. He was standing in an alleyway, a dirty, abandoned, alleyway. Uh-_huh._ Well, this was certainly interesting...

Sighing, he went forward, and looked about a bit. He did this for about fifteen minutes, and when he could see no sign of the Elf, he turned to leave... and nearly walked into him.

"Oh! There you are, I was—"

"Shh! Come here!" Chris said, and pulled him roughly into the nearest building with an open door, slamming it shut behind them, and immediately shot a quick spell at it to lock it. It also put a kind of shield over it, apparently, as the brief wave of energy that spread over it from the center suggested. He then gave him a 'stay there' gesture, and ran about the floor they were on closing, locking, and magically barricading every one of them. Once this was finished, as he came toward Harry, he kept sort of spinning around, looking up and all over the barely visible ceiling.

Chris looked like every nerd girls' fantasy. He had muscles, but not particularly prominent ones, long, dark hair tied back in a smooth pony tail, sharp, piercing green eyes that managed to look both dangerous and inviting at the same time, and dressed like a less severe goth. He also had a pierced eyebrow, and spoke with an accent that was impossible to place. One minute you thought it was one type of accent, the next you might be wrong and it could be another. Add pointy ears to this equation and they would practically line up just to say hi. Normally, too, he had a sort of vague, bad-ass type of attitude and was a very formidable opponent in both magical and non-magical fights.

The latter things were what Harry was familiar with. This... This seemed wrong. He was looking around as though he expected them to be jumped at any moment, and he'd put up so many shields that it left the air around them tingling. "Uh... Hi?" he said, very uncertain.

Chris, who was inexplicably panting, said, "Hi," and nodded, still looking up at the rafters.

"What's... Going on?"

"I don't have a lot of time to explain, look," Chris started, and pulled him to the nearest dark spot, as though not wanting them to be seen here. "Listen to me, Harry. Something big is going on, something really, really big, and if it isn't stopped ASAP, the entire world is gonna go to hell. Maybe literally."

"What?"

"_Listen, _Harry! I don't have a lot of time, they'll probably be here any second, just—"

"What, who will? The Council?"

"No, Harry, not the Council, something else, something bad. Look, I messed up, big time, and there isn't anything that can be done about that right now, I shouldn't even be here with you, but I need to warn you."

"Warn me about what? What did you _do_, Chris?"

"He tricked me, I swear to God, any one that you can name, and I fell for it, and now something big is happening. Those kids, the ones that've been dying?"

"Yeah..."

"He's using them, he needs them for their blood, Harry."

"What?"

"Don't say anything, just listen, you need to get yourself off that case, okay? You—no, stop talking, you need to get off that case and you need to get yourself and Bob as far away from here as you can, okay? _Especially _Bob..."

"Bob?" Chris tried to interrupt him again, but he wouldn't let him this time. "No, no what about Bob? What does this have to do with Bob, Chris?"

"I can't _tell _you that, Harry, I can't, but I will tell you that it doesn't have a _lot _to do with him, okay? He _does_ want to take him away, but you can_not_ let that happen, understand? You need to get both of you out of here, for his safety as much as your own."

Harry shook his head in disbelief. "Chris, what the hell is going on? Tell me what the hell's going on!"

"He wants to open up the Nevernever, Harry! He needs to get to the center in order to—" But then there was a sound. It was an animalistic sound, like a sort of warning screech, coming from the rafters. All Harry could see were shapes, great, hulking shapes, and little pinpoints of light where their eyes must have been. Chris, who was looking up at them in horror, turned his back to Harry and said, in a hoarse whisper, "Run."

"What are they?"

"Harry, RUN!" But immediately as he said that, at lightning speed, one of the forms blasted down off the rafters at them, knocking Harry to the ground and sending his wand flying. He should have brought the hockey stick instead, but that was what he got for trying not to draw attention to himself.

He then looked up into a face that would probably haunt his nightmares for years to come. It was a sickly, greenish white color, bony and pale, and it had huge, pupil-less black eyes sunk into it. It's mouth was lined with sharp, dripping teeth, and it's breath reeked of death. It may have had hair at one point, but that was reduced to something that looked like cobwebs draped across it's scalp. He screamed in spite of himself, and it screamed back as though taunting him, a nasty, grating noise, and the next thing he knew, it was being blasted off of him by a magical torrent from Chris, who pulled him up and then stood with his back against Harrys'.

From here, he could better see them. They stood out in the darkness, forty of them, at least, the light from the moon and the streetlamps outside reflecting off from the windows. Harpys, they had to be, but they were unlike any kind he had heard of before. They were tall, you could see their bones, and they were naked. Traditionally, Harpys were depicted as a vulture with the face and bosom of a beautiful woman. These were nothing like that, but it was all he could think of. They had long, bloodstained claws on their hands, and the feet of an eagle or some such bird of prey instead of human feet. Their wings were leathery, like bat wings, but here and there an odd feather poked out, as though they were molting. One or two of them had lizard-like tails for some reason, whereas others had none. And they were closing in.

"I said run, idiot!" Chris said to him, as they circled with their backs pressed together. Chris' hands were emanating a soft glow and were at the ready. He didn't need wands.

"Oh, yeah, thanks so much for telling me sooner!" He hissed back. "What are these things? Harpys?"

"I guess you could say that, only they come direct from some of the worst places in the Nevernever."

"Great, just great. What do we do now?"

He shrugged. "We fight."

Harry groaned. "Perfect." And they fought.

He hadn't had this brutal a fight in a very long time, Harry had to admit. He managed to get to his wand while shooting out as many spells as he could without it, and blasted the first one that pounced on him, it's scream of rage ringing in his head. They came at him from all different angles, biting, clawing, and using their tails if they had one. Was it just him, or did it look like they were increasing in number? And where the hell was Chris?

Fighting his way through, occasionally having to use his bare fists as weapons, he manged to find him again, locked in combat with about five of them. "Chris!" He busted his way into the throng, and managed to get two on the ground. They just got right back up.

"Harry! The door! Get to the door! Now! I'll be fine!" As he said this, Chris blasted a few more and shoved him when he got the chance.

"Like hell!" There was no way Harry would leave a man behind...

For what seemed like hours more, they fought, and more and more of the creatures burst in through the windows, breaking the shields Chris had placed. They just wouldn't _stop_... He fought another one off, beating them back as best he could, though he could feel his strength fading. They were separated again, but only by a few beasts that got in the way, and he tried to get through, but was knocked over. By some miracle he was able to hold onto his wand, but wasn't fast enough. He cried out as they lashed out at him, kicking him, slashing him, hitting him with whatever part of their bodies they could. He could hear Chris trying to get to him, and tried to let him know where he was, but the pain kept coming. Eventually, he was hit hard enough as to be sent rolling along the floor a ways, where he focused on enough energy to blast them away long enough to grab some debris and pull himself into a standing position. He wavered on the spot, head swimming, energy drained. And still they kept coming. There was Chris, but he was bleeding, too, and struggling. He tried to go to him, but when he got near enough, he let out a scream as fangs dug into his shoulder.

Chris came at them as fast as he was allowed. He shot the creatures in front and behind Harry with enough force to send them sprawling, and reached out a hand, helping him back up... And then was violently grabbed around the neck by a powerful clawed hand. The claws went into his flesh and he let out a strangled choke as blood trickled out of one corner of his mouth.

"NO!" But the next thing he knew, his friend was being brought up and out of the building through the ceiling, several creatures in tow. Ignoring his pain and temporarily unable to focus on anything else, he ran toward the stairs, but was grabbed from behind, swung around, and thrown through the doorway that had been previously shielded, out into the alley, where he hit an old, rusty dumpster. The creature landed on him, digging it's claws into his chest, and raised the other hand. There were others behind it, others coming toward them... And then, just when it moved to strike, they all froze, blinked, and looked up at the sky in the same direction, as though they were being called, though he could hear nothing resembling a call of any kind.

They left him. The one that had been on top of him seemed reluctant, and got off slowly, looking back at him for a moment before being the last to leave. Harry closed his eyes, saw blackness, and remembered nothing more.

X

He woke up to a familiar voice booming in his head.

"Dresden?"

He opened his eyes, but it hurt, and he groaned, squeezing them shut again. He had opened them long enough to see who was crouching over him, though. "Morgan?"

"What happened, Dresden? I was going to come back and tell you what my decision was."

"I just... I was meeting Chris..." And then he remembered. He opened his eyes in shock, and shot into a sitting position, but cried out and sank back down just as Morgan told him to be still.

"You've lost a lot of blood. Sit up, but do it slowly." When he did, without any sort of consideration, Morgan tore what remained of Harrys' shirt open and placed a hand on his chest.

"Morgan, what the hell—"

"I need to heal you. I already started when I got here, or you probably wouldn't be awake right now. Try to stay calm."

"Stay calm? Did you see what those things did, Morgan, they—ah!" His face contorted in pain.

"I _said _stay calm. And no, I didn't see anything. What happened here?"

Giving up, Harry shifted and leaned his back against the wall, letting Morgan do his work. "Harpys. They came outta nowhere while he was trying to tell me something about those kids..."

"What about them?"

"I don't know," he said, his voice quiet, "They attacked us."

Morgan was working on his neck now. "Where is Chris now?"

Silence.

Morgan opened his eyes and saw Harry looking away, his head turned to one side, features grim. If he hadn't learned how to tune out his emotions, he would have felt badly for him, knowing how long they had been friends. "Harry. What happened to Chris?"

"They took him. He's probably dead." It came out rather weakly, but he was too tired and upset to care.

Morgan took his hands away from him, apparently having done what he could, and looked carefully at him. Before he could say anything, however, there was the sound of boots approaching, and Harry was suddenly aware that there were other Council members here as well.

"There's some blood," said a red headed girl Harry had never seen before, "We can try to use that to track them. Other than that, there isn't anything useful in here."

Harry looked up at the four members who had approached them. One, a rail-thin bespectacled boy, said, in a voice that was too deep to suit him, "Ancient Mai says we need to leave now. There are sirens coming."

Great. Mai was here. Just great.

Morgan stood and looked down at him. When it didn't look as though he would get up, he lifted him himself, and let go when he was sure he could stand on his own. "I think it's best for you to go home, now, Dresden. We will speak again."

"But what about Chris?"

"We will look into it."

"Look into it? What the hell do you mean, look into it? They killed him, for Chrissake!"

"Perhaps they didn't."

"Are you kidding me? I saw one grab him around the neck hard enough to make blood come out of his mouth before they flew away with him!"

"Which does not mean that he's dead," said Morgan, In a slightly louder voice, though not quite in a yell. "And we will find them, Dresden. Now go home and sleep. We'll speak when I'm able." With that, he turned and walked off with the other wizards.

Harry stared after them, then made an annoyed noise, stomped over to his wand, which lay on the ground by where he had fallen, and saw it fall in two in his hand. He yelled in frustration, threw the now useless peices of wood at a wall, and, pulling up one side of his ruined shirt and shifting his coat, he stomped out of the alleyway and nearly stopped a cab before realizing he hadn't brought any money for one. He let out one last angry roar before turning for home.

Chris was dead. Chris was dead, the kids were being sacrificed for something, and some psycho was trying to unleash the Nevernever on the world. What was at the center of it that was so important, and what in Gods' name did any of this have to do with... He stopped walking. Bob. He had told him to get Bob away because someone wanted to take him. And he was here, now, and didn't know how long he'd been out. Shit!

He broke into a run.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello, ladies and gents! I have attempted to return, although this may have taken a while to even begin writing. Sorry 'bout that, but y'know... Anyways, so here I is, back to entertain you all with whatever my brain decides to create for this chapter. Please read and enjoy! Ta! Also, awesome nerd points for whoever gets the vague and occasionaly very vague references I make in the dream world!

ch.6

By the time Harry had gotten back home, he was in no better condition than he had been. He was tired, angry, upset, and a bit scared for Bob now that he had been mentioned. He became quite relieved, however, when Bob answered his slightly strained call. If nothing was wrong, he didn't want him to know he'd been worried. However relieved he was, though, he felt no better otherwise.

"What on earth happened to you?" Bob asked when he came into the room.

"Uh, well, let's see, I went to meet Chris, found him, he pulled me into an abandoned building, tried to tell me what the fuck's going on, we were attacked by Harpys, he was either killed or kidnapped by them, and I have nothing to go on. Other than that, oh, nothing." Exasperated, he collapsed on the couch and winced, noting that while Morgan may have healed the actual wounds, some of it still hurt.

"I see. Well. Does that explain the shirt, then? It's just that usually when you've been in a fight, you may have some tears, but never have I seen one ripped completely open like that."

"What? Oh, yeah, no, that was just Morgan."

A confused look came over the ghosts' face. "I'm sorry... _Morgan _ripped your shirt off?" He kept an unexpected hurt note out of his voice, and, deciding not to wonder why that note was there, continued with, "_Harry_. I wouldn't have expected that. Not that I mind, I _am_ a thousand years old, but well..."

"What? What, no, no, he... healed me! Christ, Bob..."

"I was only trying to lighten the mood..."

"Yeah, great, thanks..." And with that, he got up and went to the fridge for a soda. He wasn't in the mood for Bobs' quips right now.

Bob waited for Harry to continue, and when he sat down again and popped open the can, but didn't say another word, he grew impatient. "Well?"

Harry swallowed the sip he'd taken. "Well, what?"

Bob rolled his eyes. "Well, what happened? What does Chris know about this?"

"Oh, right..." Should he say anything about it? About the fact that someone or something was looking for him? Probably not, at least not until he knew who it was. "Uh... Well, apparently some psycho is trying to unlock the Nevernever. The kids are being used for some kind of sacrifice, I think..."

"Well, that isn't good..."

"Nope." He paused for another swig. "But what he couldn't tell me is what they were being sacrificed _for._ Or who, if it comes to that. We were attacked before he could continue..." He remembered something else. What Chris had said about the whole ordeal. "He said... He said the guy that was doing this tricked him and he did something he shouldn't have. He was expecting to be attacked, but I'm not sure if he knew by what."

"Hm, that is something to wonder about. Has Chris always been trustworthy?"

"Yes! I've never known him to do something stupid enough to cause all hell to break loose!"

"Alright, alright, just asking... Standard questions, you know."

"Chris was... _is_... not going to do something like that on purpose, okay, Bob? Christ, he's the only Council member who seems to like me."

"I hate to break it to you, but don't you think that is something to be concerned about in itself? Given your reputation, I mean? Regardless?" Harry glared at him, and he backed off a bit. "Fine, fine..." Harry went back to his drink and said nothing for a few moments. "Is that all, then?"

"Hm?" He wasn't paying much attention, but instead was staring straight ahead of himself, just contemplating.

"I _said _is there anything else he mentioned about the case?"

Harry tried to make it unnoticeable, but he sort of froze for half a second. And then he lied. He lied to Bob, which was something he had never, ever done in his memory. "Uh... No. No, he didn't get to."

There were a few moments of very quiet silence. And then, very calmly, Bob said, "Ah. Well. That's too bad, then."

He didn't look at him. "Yeah," he said quietly. He waited. Bob knew. He didn't need to say a word about it, didn't need to do anything, and Harry knew that he knew he'd lied. Without looking at him, though, he couldn't see exactly how this was being taken. He wondered if it was okay to look at him yet.

Yes, Bob knew it was a lie. He had no idea how to react to this, though. He was slightly confused, slightly hurt, and slightly worried. To his knowledge, Harry had never done that before, unless he had just been a very good actor about it, or he himself hadn't been paying enough attention to notice. He wondered if there was some reason. Was there something in this that he thought he would disapprove of? Was it to protect him somehow? If that was the case, though, he didn't see why he would bother. After all, in his current physical state it wasn't as though any harm could befall him, at least not the outside kind. So why on earth had his pupil just blatantly lied to him?

Since thoughts can pass in milliseconds, no matter how big or complex, this thought process was soon concluded with the thought that if he was being lied to, he would soon find out in any case, in some way or another, sooner or later, and so it should for now be let go. Instead, he asked another question. "So. What was Morgan doing there?"

That must mean he could look at him. He did. "Oh, I guess they showed up when they heard the noise or something, someone must have recognized what was going on and called them. I don't really know, he woke me up, healed me a bit, some other guys showed up, and then..." He shrugged, "He told me to piss off."

"Sounds just like him, then."

Harry allowed himself a chuckle, to try and lighten the mood again, and said, "Yeah, I guess it does." Smiles were shared, and whatever ice had been formed thawed.

"Well, at least you're safe, then."

"Yup."

"So... Any ideas?"

He thought for a few minutes. "Well... If these kids are being used as sacrifices, I think the first thing we should be looking at is what for. Once we get that answer, it should be okay."

"Hm, yes. But it's usually difficult to do that sort of thing without recreating it, which I know very well you have no interest in doing... You don't, do you?"

Harry laughed. "Nope, no, I think that's a bad, bad idea."

"Good. I wouldn't like to think this was causing you to slip up."

Harry finished his coke and stood up to toss the can in the garbage. "I should hope not, too." Tossing the can he said, "Alright, I'm gonna take a nap for a while. Hopefully when I wake up I'll be in less pain. Just wake me up if someone shows up, okay?" He went up the stairs to his room, stripping his shirt as he did so, his shoes coming off at the bottom of the stairs.

"Alright," Bob said, and watched him go. And then he lost his balance, catching himself with a foot. Oh, no, not again...

The voice in the fog in his head was upset.

He was yelling.

Bob became startlingly aware that he had a very vague but recognizable feeling that something had been done wrong.

That there was someone who was there and in pain, wherever this was taking place.

There was something inhuman there...

"Yeah?" Bob jumped and blinked. He looked up. Harry had come over to the railing above.

"Sorry?"

"You called me, didn't you?"

Had he? Well, then, no need to worry him... "Oh, er..." He smiled. "Good night."

Blinking in surprise, Harry decided he was too tired to really mind right now. "Oh, okay. Night, Bob." And with that, he went to bed, leaving Bob to stand where he was and try to prevent himself from trembling.

X

Harry dreamt.

He dreamed of the usual oddness that he was used to by now. Things that, in the morning, wouldn't make a lick of sense. Things he couldn't care less about. And then he was in a place he didn't recognize at all.

It gave off strange colors, and strange feelings. He may have been in a room, he may have been outside in a field, or in the woods. And then one of the Sandmen stepped into his line of view, which seemed a bit skewed at the moment.

Hello, Harry Dresden, the non-existent voice said.

"Oh. Hi. Uh..."

Yes. You are dreaming.

"Okay, good. So. Which one are you, now?"

We do not understand.

"Oh, you're one of the ones I called, right?"

Yes.

"Okay, just making sure... Where am I?"

You are in the world of your human Dreams.

"In the Nevernever?"

Not exactly, but it is a part of it. All of your kind come here when they sleep.

"Ah, I see." He walked closer to it, intending to shake hands or something before remembering they probably didn't do that.

"Cool." Wanting to see more of this place, he began to walk, unconsciously making some sort of gesture which must have suggested they walk on, as the Sandman followed him. "Is this about the case?" he asked as he absent-mindedly kicked a pink bag out of their way. As they went on, he looked around. This place was creepy. It was like a horrible mix of his memories of places he'd seen in life, or on TV or movies, or in magazines. Some of them looked like pictures of themselves instead of the actual places, only they could still walk through them. Some were half of one thing and half of another, some were so mixed he couldn't tell what the original was.

Yes. We have some news that may concern you.

"I probably should have expected that."

Perhaps.

He stopped at what looked like the mangled remnants of the door of his uncles' house, and carefully chose to avoid it altogether. They moved on.

It is our belief that the perpetrator of these crimes is human, but very, very old.

"What do you mean?"

He has not yet died.

"Well, humans do have a longish life span. It isn't as though we only live for a few hours."

You misunderstand us.

"I do?"

We mean he has found a means to prevent his own death by use of powers your kind do not posses.

"Wait..." They stopped in the middle of some sort of labyrinth made of a mix of rock walls and shrubbery, the grass of which, when it was there, was patterned like a chessboard. A fairy, or what his mind perceived as one, flitted past them, as someone he couldn't see sang a song about a turtle or something. "They're immortal, you mean?"

Yes.

"But... Humans can't be immortal without help..."

The help this man has had is not of human make. He himself, however, is meant to be human.

"Do you know what gave him the immortality?"

We are searching for the answer to that question.

"I see..." They began walking again. He had the strangest feeling that the small blue caterpillar he glanced at in a hole in one of the rock parts of a wall had just asked him in for tea. "So... how old has he made himself?"

We cannot tell. It is only that he is very old, and of an age that should not be.

"Okay..." He was surprised to note that while the figure next to him had not changed in the minutest way, he was vaguely aware that this Sandman was not the same one he had been speaking to. He didn't feel anything uneasy about this, though, and made no comment. He heard water, but couldn't see any. They were still in the maze. "Do you know anything about the children, though?"

We know only that this man is the one causing them harm, but as yet, we know not how.

"Do you know why he needs their blood?"

He is using it to entice creatures of other planes of the Nevernever. He needs to keep these creatures at bay so his goal may be achieved.

"And what is his goal?"

He seeks an item of great power.

"Typical." He noted that they were now on a beach that made his brain hurt. They were apparently walking on the water of the ocean, which had a sand-like quality, but under which could clearly be seen fish and other sea creatures swimming happily along. The buildings of a city that may have been Chicago loomed on their right, but when not upright, were washing up onto the water and back again. This scene seemed familiar... He thought about where he had heard of this before, and chuckled to himself when he remembered. He read too many books.

Yes. We suppose it is.

"So... what'll this item do? What is it?" He felt strangely sleepy... relaxed... Was it normal to feel this way when he was already dreaming?

It will give him control.

"What of?"

"Whatever he likes." Harry turned when he realized there had been an actual voice there, and not just a sense of words. His eyes widened and he backed toward the buildings of water, which turned to cold, hard, black and red stone and grew and enveloped him.

X

Back in the real world, about ten minutes after this, Bob was screaming at him, trying and failing to have any effect on the yelling and thrashing form in the bed.

Harry would not wake up.


	7. Chapter 7

Hi there! Sorry this is so long, but I kept writing and writing, and then I was like, you know what? I should end this soon... Anyways, this is now the newest chapter for this story! This time around, it's Bob who gets the action scenes, so please enjoy it! Yay!

ch.7

Bob was panicking. He did not do this often, being beyond the point of caring to this extent. Or so he thought. Now, however, he wasn't so sure. Harry was thrashing and trying hard to scream, but it was as though something was preventing him from doing so too loudly. Like an invisible hand was pressed over his mouth, though it left enough room for said mouth to open and shut as per usual. He was doing his best, he really was. Normally, if there were such points in time when Harry was having a nightmare, he would easily be able to wake him by simply passing a hand through his face. Not roughly, as though hitting him, but softly. At the very least, if it didn't wake him it soothed him a bit. Right now, no matter what he did, this sort of gesture was having no effect and he was beginning to be very worried. If something happened to him and he could tell no one...

The door opened. He tensed unnecessarily. "Harry?" Oh, thank God.

"Morgan! Morgan, he's up here, come quickly!" He leaned over the rail, or rather slightly through it, and gestured wildly. "Please! Something's wrong!"

Needing no further encouragement, the warden bounded up the stairs, drawn by Bobs' expression. When he got up there, he went straight through the ghost, ignoring the sensation, which usually made Harry shudder a bit, (Which always annoyed Bob a little, he didn't think there was anything wrong with it.), and headed straight for the bed. To his shock and further concern, Bob noticed that the thrashing and screaming, or attempted screaming, had subsided a little, but not enough that it was completely gone. "What happened to him?" Morgan demanded, rounding on him like it was his fault. "I have no idea, he just went up here to take a nap, and a few minutes later he was like this. It was worse before, though..."

"Have you tried waking him up?" He gave him a look, trying to will the ghost into calming down. He didn't seem very calm right now.

"Of course I tried waking him up, what do you think I've been doing?" he asked angrily.

"You tell me."

This response was so utterly unexpected and completely confusing that Bob couldn't say anything else, the shock apparent on his face.

Morgan said nothing further in regards to this, and set about trying to wake Harry. "Dresden. Wake up." He shook him slightly. This seemed to have no effect. He tried harder. "Wake up, Dresden." The firmness in his voice made it louder, but this was still providing no results. He began calling to him and shaking him as hard as he dared, but to no avail.

"What's wrong with him? What's wrong, has something got hold of him?"

"Stop talking, Bob."

"But the case, what if— "

"Bob!" Bobs' mouth snapped shut. "Stop. Talking."

Reluctantly, he did as he was told, nodding.

Morgan left the room momentarily, ignoring the obvious wish to protest and the frantic glaces between himself and the man on the bed. He came back in with a glass of water and dumped it on him. Nothing. He put the glass down and attempted to try and gently tap the sides of his face, although gentle was a bit the wrong word. Nothing. Taking a breath, he sat straight, and took out his sword. Bob began to say something, but this was ignored, and he began trying some spells. One after the other, he tried them, and when they didn't work he tried more, different ones, beginning to try and detect what was doing this to Harry. All to no avail.

Giving up, he sat back and looked at him. By this time he had gone completely still, but not in a way that suggested anything good. This stillness was _too _still, and too quiet. After staring at him some more, listening with little interest to Bob jabbering away his concerns in a frantic manner at his side, he came to a conclusion. He waited for a break in the panicked speech before speaking.

"Bob," he said, his voice very quiet, demanding attention.

"Y—yes?"

He looked carefully at him. The man seemed utterly terrified. How touching. "Something has a hold on him that I cannot break."

If it was possible for a ghost to go pale, this one did so. "What?"

"I don't know. But there is a way to get him out."

"Which is?"

"You."

This received a confused stare. "What can I do?"

"You need to go inside his mind, find him in his dream state, and bring him back out."

This was even more frightening than he would have thought. "_What?_"

"You are capable."

"Well, I suppose, but—"

"And you are his friend. He trusts you. He doesn't trust anyone as much, and even if he did, you are still the only one capable of doing this. He needs to be brought out, Bob. Before he's killed like the others." He had gone ahead and said this much so that there would be no room for protesting, or so he thought.

"But, I can't... I don't... I could hurt him!"

"Yes. You could. But I don't believe you will."

There was a very long, or what seemed like a very long, stare shared. Morgan waited, while Bob turned everything over very quickly in his mind. There was no choice. There really was no choice. He looked at Harry. He was pale. "No... I don't believe I would, either." He said it very quietly, the look on his face a mix of sadness, fear, and worry. He would never, ever, even dream of hurting him.

He took a breath. "Very well. I suppose there isn't any other way." With this, he moved closer to the side of the bed. He paused and looked at Morgan uncertainly. Morgan nodded. Right. Right...

A few more deep breaths were taken, and then he did it. Slowly, tentatively, he reached out a hand and hovered it over Harrys' sweaty brow. He looked at Morgan again, who widened his eyes at him in a silent, pointed manner, and then back. He hoped this didn't hurt... He lowered his hand and slowly turned into a swirling orange and black fog, which disappeared just as slowly into Harrys' body.

Morgan leaned his elbows on his knees, steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, and waited.

X

Bob didn't want to open his eyes, he was worried about what he might see. There was a tingling sensation all over his body. There was a breeze playing with his hair.

Wait.

Tingling.

Breeze.

He hadn't felt those things in a very long time.

He was now further aware that he appeared to be able to actually feel the clothing he was wearing. Loose, but not uncomfortable. Not, he guessed, his usual suits. He weighed the object in his hand. It appeared to be something with a handle, or something straight and narrow. He could feel this as well. It wasn't heavy, but it wasn't light, either. Should he open his eyes now? Probably. He did so.

He looked around himself, and noted that he was in the park, the place where they had found the body of a werewolf a few months before. It seemed wider, and there was no street around it. No cars, either, just a wide, open valley, which somehow also housed the same features as the park within it. It seemed brighter here than it had been in reality.

He looked down at his own body. Harry had been watching too many movies, when the TV didn't foul up on him. He was dressed in the standard this-movie-takes-place-hundreds-of-years-ago garb. White, loose fitting shirt, with an open neck which would have been closed by two strips of fabric hanging from it, and which had slightly puffed sleeves, though not puffed enough to suggest this had been a womans' shirt. This was met at the bottom by a pair of dark, also loose, trousers, closed only with a few buttons, and which were tucked into a pair of boots, which were rather nice, he had to admit. Comfortable. Out of the top of the right boot stuck the handle of a blade of some kind, which he pulled out to inspect the state of. Not bad, but a bit bigger than was necessary in his opinion. Then again, in life he had only used knives to cut food and to carve random pieces of scrap wood into little figurines of sorts if he felt like it. He had never used a blade against a human being.

With this in mind, he looked to the weapon in his left hand, thinking it may have been a sword, but was relieved to see that it was simply an intricately carved staff. Staffs he had used. His brother had taught him how to wield one, and he had learned well. This would be fine for both magic and melee combat. The strange twisty knob on the end didn't need to be there, but oh, well. Sighing, he replaced the knife, and set off in a direction he thought looked promising.

For quite some time, nothing happened. He was simply wandering around, and couldn't see any signs of a break in the landscape. It had no edges, just went on and on. This was getting tiresome. Alright. Seeing as this was Harrys' mind, and not his own, he decided to try and pause, closing his eyes again. Perhaps if he tuned himself, he might be able to sense certain things. He tried it.

At first, there was nothing. Just the simple feeling of being in a park with your eyes closed on a breezy day. It was warm, and there were birds. Closer attention was needed, then. He paid it. Tuning out all outside noises and the feel of grass beneath his feet, and, of course, the wind, he focused outside of those things. It took some time, but he was able to get something. It was barely there, which worried him. He had been looking for some way to know where Harry was. Some sense of him, whatever that might have been. He picked it up, held that thought, and very slowly opened his eyes, stared at the ground for a few seconds, and then looked to his left, and a bit ahead. He smiled. The air in this area was shimmering slightly. It was barely decernable, but he could see it. "There you are, dear," he said quietly to himself, totally ignoring the fact that he had added the word dear at the end of that sentence. With that, he walked confidently forward.

To his annoyance, the shimmer in the air kept staying exactly the same distance from him. He stopped walking and squinted at it. It stopped where it was. He moved forward again. Apparently, so did it. Hm. He sped up. Barely any change, but enough so that he became confident once more. Alright, so that was how it was going to be? Fine. He slowly went into a run, gathering speed as he went, and when he got close enough, he leapt. He made it through with his eyes squeezed shut, sideways, and landed on his side. It hurt. It actually _hurt_. He was almost pleased with this. He stood, brushed himself off, and took a gander at his new surroundings. Ah. Well. This was unusual.

He had no idea where he was. All he did know, however, was that he needed to keep going. This was... What was this, exactly? A boiler room? An alleyway? Some dark warehouse? The floor was cold. Also, the shimmer that had indicated Harry was nowhere to be found. That was disconcerting.

"Hello, Bob."

He stopped moving and stared at nothing for a second, then carefully moved only his eyes, tilting his head a bit over one shoulder. He turned around. Oh, hell. He took a breath and let it out. "Justin. You're looking well for a dead man."

Justin Morningway stepped out of his position in the shadows. He was wearing an altered version of his usual suit, it looked a bit torn up. He also had on a hat, which did not suit him. "Coming from an equally dead man?"

"Equal? No."

"It's very nice to see you again." He stepped closer to him, and Bob stood his ground, hoping to conceal the fact that he was about to break into a smirk.

"Of course. And what exactly are you doing here?"

"Oh..." He made a sort of shrugging gesture that indicated the general lack of activity. "Just... Hanging around."

"How nice of you."

"Well, there isn't really anything left to do, is there? So I, you know, give him a few nightmares every so often. When I feel like it. Although lately I've been having trouble getting to him." He stopped, and gave Bob a thoughtful look. "Something's been occupying his mind a lot lately..." There was a lot of meaning in the combination of this phrase and the way he was looking at him, but Bob failed to recognize this because he had spotted the shimmer again, behind this apparition. Also, he was impatiently waiting for him to get just a bit closer so he could handle this easily. He wanted to give him something he felt was deserved, and since he was in Harrys' dreamscape, he felt it would be quite alright.

"Well," Bob said as politely as he dared, "I'm sure I'd like to stay and chat, but I need to go, sorry." With this, he tried to go around the man. He got in his way.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, yes. Very much so." Just a little closer... He moved the other way, and acted exasperated when he was once again blocked. Just...

"You know, I'm sure it wouldn't be too much trouble." He came closer again.

A little more... "And I'm very sure it would be, now, if you don't mind..."

Ah. Don't smile yet, effect, you know... "Why would that be?"

"I'm trying to reach Harry, and you're hindering me. I wouldn't do that, you know."

"Really?"

Now he smiled. "Yes, really."

He then punched him in the face. Hard.

My, it was satisfying to see him go down. Granted, he had very little experience with such things, but it worked rather well. He stepped over him, casting a smug look upon the form, and was pleased to see he didn't need to jump into the shimmer again. He simply walked toward it, and was completely surprised to find himself somewhere else entirely. He hadn't even noticed he'd reached it. He stiffened. The feeling he was following was stronger here. This place was also, apparently, burning. Outside, inside, building or forest, he couldn't tell. It wasn't actually on fire, but smoldering. It looked as though the scenery around him was turning inwards on itself, as though it were a picture that had had one corner placed into a flame. Whatever was behind it was completely white. Cursing, he sped up and tried to find a way out. It was difficult, very difficult. He nearly fell off the edge of the picture at one point, or at least was given the impression that was so. When he finally managed to stumble his way into another dreamscape, it was because the last one fell completely from under his feet, and he had to make a leap for the edge of the next area. Scrambling up onto it with a heave, he spun around, panting, and watched the remains of where he had just been standing float downward into nothing. He stared at this for a bit, now absolutely certain that he needed to get to Harry soon, or he didn't like to think what would happen.

Getting up, he turned... and was looking at a black, brown, and white landscape. It may have been a city, but he wasn't sure. It looked weather worn, stained by age, and decrepit. Like a scene in an old shadow box, actually. A wooden one, though the background wasn't the best to confirm this. It was all vertical lines, splotches, and dots. He looked around. He could see nothing of interest here. That didn't mean there was nothing there, of course. So he looked. He needed to, to see if Harry was here. Taking a breath, he walked on, not feeling very happy about the silence, or the stillness, or the fact that everything seemed to be creaking, not only underfoot, but on it's own as well.

He continued on, though, looking in, through, or around buildings, hoping for some sign of anything at all. He found it in the form a familiar little boy, who he saw peering at him from around a corner, very carefully. He couldn't see his entire face, but he would have recognized it if he had been a hundred miles away. "Harry?" The little boy ducked behind the wall he'd been peering around. This should have been a warning, but he failed to heed it. He followed him. "Harry? Wait!"

He followed him through alleys, through places he didn't know about, and in and out of some of the buildings. He was so busy doing this that he never noticed that, little by little, they were being followed close behind by a growing group of black, shapeless creatures which looked as though they had been cut out of the same stuff the houses and things here were made of. They were very quiet, but if he had been listening, he would have head a soft whispering in their wake.

At last, Harry ducked into one last building. When Bob got there, he was standing in the middle of a very large and empty room, his hands folded in front of him at his waist. "Harry? Are you alright? Listen, we need to—" But he was suddenly interrupted by the floor around Harry exploding into a horde of the small black creatures that had been following them. They launched themselves at him in a tidal wave, and he lost sight of the boy. They sounded him like a flock of birds, or a huge amount of bats, rustling, chattering, squeaking...

He fought them. What else could he do? They clawed and scratched at him, made him bleed, (Blood! He had blood here!), but he fought them as best he could, even though he didn't have time to think about what to do. It was a long time before he hit one, and when he did, it was with his staff, and he got one across the middle. It ripped into paper. This seemed to Bob to happen in slow motion. The whole time, he had been worried they were invincible, that they were just a solid mass of something he had yet to decipher, but they were _paper._ He knew what to do now, and it wouldn't be hard.

As soon as he could gather enough power, as soon as he could properly hold the staff he had been given, he erupted. Every creature that had been piled on him was blown away, torn to shreds and scattered. But they weren't all gone.

He had just enough time to note that there was a wall in front of him, one that turned to a cliff halfway up, and continued up to a sort of ledge. There. His doorway was there. Thrusting away even more creatures, he ran forward, his intent clear in his mind. He had no time for strategising. He needed to move now. So he did. Using a stump or a barrel of some kind, it was impossible to tell what the thing was in this color scheme, he launched himself to a handhold. Clambering up and fighting the creatures off as he went, he continued on. He then noticed that instead of burning, this scene was crumbling, falling apart like wood. Some of the creatures still on the floor, the ones who hadn't begun to climb over the others, were lost to it, falling into more whiteness. And then the crumbling process began to hit the wall he was on.

It did this slowly, as though taunting him in it's own way, and he climbed faster. If he looked down, he saw the creatures falling to their deaths with what little scenery there was left. If he looked up, the wall seemed to stretch higher. Damn. Damn it all. He sped up even more, though he was reaching his speed limit. He used a mix of window ledges and jutting stones to pull himself. Eventually, the windows lessened, and then it was just rocks, which began to lessen as well. The creatures behind him were no longer paying him any mind, they were too busy climbing over and around him, trying to escape their fate. When there were more of them than there were handholds, he began using them to climb over as well, being left with no choice.

He threw himself weakly at the shimmer when he got there, just before everything that had been there crumbled away, the last of the beasts tumbling down after it.

Here he lay on the ground, breathing heavily, not daring to open his eyes lest he see something wretched. He needed to gather his breath and his strength again before he could handle that. This... This was not good. He felt it wasn't Harry doing this to him, but whomever or whatever it was that had him chained here, and he wanted to find out fast, defeat it if necessary, and get Harry out, safe. He hoped the rest of it would be easy, or he might not be able to do it.

Alright, then. He felt nothing unusual here, and it felt very much like it had when he had first arrived. He hoped it wasn't that he was back where he started. That would be miserable. When he finally felt he was back to normal, he slowly opened his eyes, and found himself staring at a blue sky. There was even a bird or two that flew past. As he lay and stared at this, something else flew into his vision. It passed him, but it had been long enough for him to note that it had been either a fairy or a dragonfly. It seemed to have been swimming back and forth between these two images.

Finally, he sat up, after surveying the area from his position on the ground and finding that insufficient. He had seen grass and dirt, and a few pebbles. Now that he was sitting, he looked around again. He was in a bright, pleasant looking maze, made of both shrubs and rock walls. Here and there was a break, bordered by a couple of long pedestals with round stones on the tops. He sat here for some time, wary of any sound he heard. Until he heard small, sneaker-clad feet dash by behind him. He turned just soon enough to see what was left of Harry as a child duck behind a wall that only looked like it was really there if you looked at it from a certain angle. "Harry?" He got up and followed him.

Too many twists and turns later, he lost sight, and just when he stopped running to stand futilely in the middle of a four way intersection, he heard something. He listened. It was a song being sung about soup. Thinking this was very strange, he made a face that said so, but, feeling he had no other discernible options, he followed the sound for a few miles. The closer he got, the more he could hear the words, and he was surprised to note that he recognized the song, if only because he had been around when the book it was from had been written, and the owners he had had at the time had a little girl, who had been friends with another little girl named Alice. That Alice, yes, and the nanny had doted on her, and had read the book to them. He had never liked the man who wrote it...

He braced himself for what he was about to see, and when he turned into the area it was coming from, he saw what he had thought he would, though it was still unexpected. He couldn't think of what to do or say besides stand there politely and wait to be noticed. He felt like a fool.

After some time of completely failing to be noticed, he cleared his throat. Nothing happened, and so he cleared it again.

Eventually he said, "Excuse me?"

The singing continued.

"I said, excuse me? Hello?" When there was a break, he said loudly, "Look, could you tell me—"

The singing still continued.

"Oh, for Gods' sake... Hello?" When nothing continued to happen, he gave up being nice and stormed right on over to the little rock on which the singer was standing, and lifted the little turtle-ish thing in one hand, looking right up into it's now terrified eyes. "There. Now..." He put the little fellow down when he felt bad for making him begin to cry, but decided sympathy would not help him right now if taken any further.

"Was there really a reason for that?" demanded the larger figure.

"Well, look, I _am_ sorry, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, and I had tried to get your attention, but—"

"You shouldn't be apologizing to me, you should be apologizing to him!"

Closing his eyes and sighing, he decided that if he was going to get anywhere, he should do it and get it over with. "I'm sorry," he said to the turtle, a little stiffly, but after a stare, the apology was accepted.

"Very good. Good man. Now, what is it?" said the gryphon.

"I was just hoping you could tell me which way to go."

"Well, I have no business telling you that, that's your own choice."

"I don't need a choice, I need an answer. It's rather urgent."

"Oh, urgent is it? Urgent? You come here and interrupt our song, and say it's urgent! Well, if any of the old professors heard that, they would have none of it!"

"I'm sure. All I need to know, however, is where to continue on to, if you wouldn't mind..."

"And if I do mind?"

Bob stared at him, eyes wide, and clearly now very angry. He couldn't take this foolishness any more. Taking a breath, he let himself turn nasty. He really didn't care.

In a flash, he had the gryphon pinned against the nearest wall, his staff held stiffly across his neck, and he growled, "I don't very much care whether or not you mind. I don't care about your claws, I don't care about your talons, I don't care about your beak, your size, or your strength. All I want to know is what the _hell _is the right way to go."

"Well, I have no control over that," the gryphon said calmly, not frightened, but not even looking as though he would do anything to him. "That is entirely up to you."

There was a pause. And then Bob got angrier. "Oh, really? Well, then, how about this?" He took one hand off the staff, using the rest of his weight to hold it in place, and lifted it in the direction of the mock turtle, greenish electricity traveling along it dangerously. "If you don't tell me what I want to know, your little friend is no more." This was very cruel, and he almost felt badly for it, as the target of his anger burst into predictable sobs, but he was done playing.

The gryphon didn't seem to have any reaction to this, however, and merely gave him an uncomfortably serene smile. "But I can't, you see. I've never even left this area." The stare he next received would have frightened even the most tranquil. "However," he said quietly, before the ensuing outburst could emerge, "The boy... Went that way." And he pointed with one claw in the direction of a very narrow split in the hedging that Bob would have normally missed.

Bob looked at this section with his eyes only, keeping everything else still. He looked back. "And that's the _right _way, is it?"

"I wouldn't know. I've never gone through."

He looked at him, then at the turtle, then back at the gryphon before stepping back and removing the staff, dropping his other hand and canceling the spell. With one last look between them, he slowly continued to step backward, then turned without another word toward the opening, which he needed to turn slightly sideways to go through.

After this, the turtle said to the gryphon in an accusing manner, "You... _bastard!_ You were going to let him do it, weren't you? You were going to let him kill me! You bastard!"

The gryphon laughed and said, "My dear fellow, no matter how well his aim, you are much too small for even the most skilled marksman to hit."

The ensuing argument went unheard by Bob, who found himself running after Harry once more, who had apparently been waiting for him to catch up on the other end of the pathway.

It was tiresome. This whole thing was dreadfully tiresome. And then, of course, Harry had to, just _had _to disappear into a wall, didn't he? He stopped running, exhausted, and said, "Oh, come on..."

"Hello!"

"What?" He looked around.

"Well, I said hello, didn't I?"

"Yes, but... I'm afraid I can't see you..." This wasn't happening...

"I'm just down here, there you are!"

Bob had looked down to where the voice was coming from, and was now staring at what appeared to be a fuzzy blue caterpillar sitting on a rock in one of the walls, just in front of a hole in said wall. It was wearing a scarf. "Hello, there!"

"Er..."

"I know, I know, bugs can't talk! Ha! Proved you wrong, then, didn't I?" When no reply seemed to be forthcoming, he continued. "After that little kid, are you? Well, then, I think you'll have some trouble there!"

"What kind of trouble?" Bob asked carefully, trying not to think too much about the fact that he ws talking to a caterpillar.

"That young fellow is after him. I don't think you'd like to tangle with him, would you?"

"What young fellow?"

"Now, don't you worry yourself too much, deary, just why don't you come on in and join me and my wife for tea, eh? Do you a load of good, you look dreadful. I'm sure we could get you to fit on in here somehow..."

Bob sighed, looked at the thing, looked back toward where Harry had disappeared into, and then said to him, "No time, thanks. Good morning!" And he gave him his most polite smile, while trying not to look strained, and turned and went through the wall, wondering why in the world he had just said good morning instead of good bye, though it had meant the same thing, when he didn't even know what time it was to begin with.

Over the next four hours, or what seemed like it, he made his way through twists and turns, argued with the occasional dream creature, and eventually got to a point when he once again had lost sight of Harry. This, however, was of no consequence, since he was now walking along the most peculiar beach he had ever encountered. He was apparently walking on the water, which was staying still, while the buildings on the horizon did the washing up and down. He looked around at this in confusion, then decided it would do no good to ponder it, and prepared to go on. Ignoring the strange monkeys chasing him from a fair distance with a typewriter, he finally came to a hill, which he climbed.

He stopped at the top, and stared at the shape of a little cottage in the distance, in front of which was lying the boyhood body of Harry Dresden, wearing pajamas with cars on them. He ran to him, and dropped to his side. "Harry? Harry, can you hear me?" He turned him onto his back, and tried to wake him from his apparent state of unconsciousness. He had been beat up pretty badly. "Harry?" When this didn't work, he gave up trying to wake him, and instead prepared to lift him.

And then there was singing.

He suddenly found he couldn't move. He couldn't look up, he couldn't speak, he couldn't think. He knew that song, and he knew the voice singing it. When he finally did manage to force his muscles into some kind of action, he looked toward the house. _His _house, he realized with shock. And there she was. She was tending the flowers in the front garden, wearing her favorite dress, and singing her favorite song. She looked as breathtaking as ever. Oh, God.

Tears welled up, and he didn't know what to do. As he knelt there, she looked up at him. She seemed not to have noticed the boy on the ground at all. "There you are, Roth. I was wondering when you would come home."

"Winifred..." he breathed, unable to do anything but sit there and stare at her. Everything felt painful and pleasant all at once.

"Of course." She came over to him, and held out a hand, which he took as though in a daze, suddenly having no control over his actions. "Come along inside, it looks as though it will rain."

He stood, and left his staff on the grass. He followed her. "Yes, it does..."

"The dog misses you, you know. He's been sitting like a lump in the house, whining."

Oh, yes. The dog. His name had been Rolland, hadn't it? He had been such a good dog... "Has he?"

"Yes, of course. He does love you ever so much."

He smiled. He was right back where he was meant to be. Right here, with Winifred, and Rolland, and... Harry. Wait... _Harry_. He said something to this effect, and turned, trying to look back, but she wouldn't let him.

"Oh, don't mind him. He will be fine, darling, now just come along inside."

Wait... She was speaking English... A thousand years ago, they hadn't spoken English, at least not where they had lived... Perhaps it was just because it was the only language Harry knew.

But, wait. That wasn't right, either. This was Harrys' mind, and he could only come in contact with things Harry knew, and he had never told him about his house, or his dog, or what Winifred had looked like. Something was wrong... "No. No, I... I need to get him..."

She tugged on his arm, trying to keep him from looking back. "No you don't, he's fine. He will be fine, don't you worry. Just let him sleep. Look, Rolland is barking for you."

He heard the barking, and turned toward it, that feeling that he wasn't in control any more sneaking up again. He shook his head. This wasn't _right_. "At least let me get my staff..." He tried to pull away again. She held tighter.

"Don't be silly, you don't need it! Come along, quickly, I've a surprise for you!"

"I just... I just want my staff... He made it for me." He wrestled himself out of her grip, stumbling and turning to where Harry lay. The black, shapeless creatures from the city were surrounding him. "Harry!" He ran toward them, and they scattered, never trying to resist his flailing arms. He grabbed Harrys' shirt and tried to pull him up, but something was holding him down.

"Roth, please! Look, you've scared them away! They were only trying to help him, they can take care of it, honest. Please do come inside." She had moved closer now, and was standing nearby, reaching to him. But he knew now that this was all wrong. He knew it even more so when he looked at her and saw something he should have before. "Please," she said again, her voice hypnotizing.

He looked at Harry, and then nodded. "Alright." He went to her, and she wrapped her arms around him, smiling.

"I've missed you..."

"As I have you," he said quietly. And his fist rammed itself into her stomach, knife in hand. "But she never had yellow eyes," he growled into her ear, his voice deep and shaking with the absolute rage he felt at how this creature _dared._

Her countenance changed. It went from the usual shock and pain a person felt at being stabbed, to angry, and teeth were bared from a rapidly changing mouth, her skin tone darkening to a sort of blackish gray. She was shoved away from him, and he held out his empty hand, the staff on the ground flying to it. "Try to remember that next time," he said, and attacked.

Whatever it was that had taken on her form was vicious. It lunged at him, and was a mass of claws and teeth. Wings spread out from it's back. The dress tattered and fell away, and the form kept changing further. He was knocked down, and found himself looking up at what must be another one of those things Harry had said had attacked him. It looked like one. It was in the air, and shook off any remaining scraps of clothing before letting out a roar and launching downwards, as the scenery around them darkened.

Bob wasn't sure what happened next. It was a combination of all sorts of things. He had to attack the creature with wings, was attacked by what turned out to be a hell hound, and at the same time, needed to keep the shapeless creatures from stealing what remained of Harry away. It was much more difficult than he liked.

He used the same spell he had before on the shapeless creatures, more than once, and once again, they turned to scraps of paper, bursting into nothing. There were no more joining them this time. This did not make the fight any less difficult, however. He still had a hell hound and a Harpy to deal with at once.

The latter attacked him again, and he was wrested to the ground, his knife lost. When spells had no time to be formed, or at least not big ones, he resorted to his terrible fist fighting skills. The Harpy didn't change tactics at all, and he was soon on the ground, on his back, using the staff to hit it. He managed to give it a glancing blow, but he was soon being held down, his face being pressed into the softening earth. From the way his face was turned, however, he could now see that the hound was dragging Harry away by the shirt. Letting out a roar, he got one hand free and blasted the Harpy, then punched it, rolling them over. Ignoring the fact that this meant nothing, he leapt off her, and launched himself at the dog, knocking it off of it's prey and rolling some way before having to fight it as well.

It bit him, and scratched him, and muscled him to the ground. It's drool hit him, and it burned, and it lifted it's head to bite into his face... And then a loud screech was heard, and the next thing he knew, the dog let out a yelp of pain and was lifted off and away from him. The gryphon from the maze was now above him in the air, the dogs' back firmly in it's claws. "I've got him! Take care of Harry!" it called, and he was briefly shocked to note that he was apparently now speaking in the voice of Harrys' dead father. Before he could say his part, it flew away, leaving him to attack the Harpy one on one.

Very well, he thought, and went after her. She was just beginning to lift the boy into air when he hit her with a spell that tore apart one of her wings. She shrieked in pain, and then made her way toward him, gathering speed. He stood and held out his hands, waiting, and then let her hit him, shooting another spell at her as soon as she did so. She flew through the air and hit a rock, and he stood directly in front of Harrys' limp body and smirked at her. "Didn't think I could hurt you, did you? Come on, then."

She chuckled. "So protective of your wizard, you are," it said, in a voice like wind over water. She got into a fighting stance and flashed some claws.

"Yes, well. I might not have known her very well, but I did promise his mother, you see."

"But that isn't all true, is it? Your precious Winny can't have your whole heart anymore... Can she?"

He made the mistake of glancing at his charge. She bowled into him, claws ripping at his flesh. Screaming in pain, he did his best to fight back, and once he could, he managed to guide them to where his knife lay in the grass, and grabbed it when given the chance. Once under her again, he spun around and used it, taking out an eye and slashing her face at the same time. She howled and covered her injury, stumbling backward, and he took this opportunity to make a run for Harry, grabbing him and holding his head against his shoulder, curling himself around him to protect him from what he was going to do.

The Harpy launched herself at his back, but never got close enough before his staff was raised behind him, and he put a shield up around himself and Harry, at the same time he let out a spell that made her flesh burn, searing her to blackness. When she stopped screaming, he slowly unfolded himself. He turned and looked at her. She was still moving, but barely. Fine. Gently, he lay Harry on the ground, and went to her. As he did so, she turned and let out a raspy laugh. "Foolish man. Stupid man." He kept walking, and paused to look at her where she lay. "You cannot keep him away forever."

"Who can't I keep away?" Bob asked, his voice very quiet and weak from the fight.

"The master. He wants him. He will find him."

"I don't think so," he said, and then reached down and used all the remnants of his strength to lift her and slam her against the large rock wall nearby. "Now you do me a little favor, hm? You probably won't die here, and you'll wake up, or go back to wherever it is you came from, and when you do, you tell your master, whoever he is, that if he continues, if this keeps up, and he keeps coming after Harry... I will _end _him. Understand? You tell him that from me."

This would have been a nice dramatic ending before killing her, and he would have liked it to be, if only to give Harry a nice show for his dreams, if he could see it, but that didn't happen. The Harpy laughed. She laughed, and it was a horrible laugh, different from the one she had used before. And then she said to him, in a language that he hadn't heard a word spoken of in over a thousand years, "_He already knows._" He stared at her in horrified shock, completely unsure of what to do. And then she melted back into the wall he was holding her against, and was gone.

He stood there and stared. Just stared.

"Bob?"

The voice was weak, and he turned to it. Harry was opening his eyes, and was confused. He was still a child, though. He went to him. "Are you alright?" he said softly, and ran a hand through his hair when he sat up.

"I think so..." He paused. "Why does my voice sound like this?"

"I don't think that matters right now, does it?"

He looked down at himself. "I'm a kid again?"

"Yes, but not for long. You'll be fine once we get you out of here."

"Okay... But... I'm tired..."

Bob laughed. "For once, I am, too. Come on." He stood, and with a groan, he lifted him up, carrying him.

"Since when can you carry me?" Harry asked as they walked down the hill toward a door that was wavering in and out of focus on the beach.

"Since right now. Though I doubt I'll be able to do so once you wake up. I don't expect I'll be substantial again."

Harry seemed to consider this before laying his head on Bobs' shoulder and closing his eyes, wrapping his arms around his neck. "Why not?"

"Well, because you're dreaming now. You were kind enough to make me solid here."

"Oh. Okay." He nuzzled closer. "Thanks for saving me, Bob."

"You're very welcome."

And with that, they made it to the door, which looked like the entrance to the lab, and Bob opened it and walked out.


	8. Chapter 8

My apologies for the amount of time it took to write this, but here it is!

ch. 8

Bob was now sitting quietly on the floor, or at least making it seem so. He could do that when prompted, though it had taken him a fair amount of years to get right. He had one knee bent upward, and the other sideways, and one of his arms rested on the upright knee, the fingers from both hands linked. He was staring in silence at the floor while Morgan tended to Harry, pelting him with questions as he did so.

When Harry had come to, the wounds he had received in the other realm had shown up almost instantaneously. He was bleeding, the wounds from his fight from earlier were reopened, and he had many new and painful bruises. He was very weak.

What wasn't very fair, in the opinion of either of them, for different reasons, Bob was sure, was that when he had brought Harry back, for a brief period of time, he was still holding on to him, really, actually touching him. For a few moments, he had been _real._ This had confused all present, but then, once the realization had kicked in and they had shared an amazed chuckle, the contact was suddenly broken, his arms had shot through him, and then Harry was in pain. For a while, he hadn't moved from where he had had come back to, which was sitting on the bed next to him, and had understandably been shocked and worried, but had been waved away by Morgan. At which point, he had moved from the bed onto the floor, and had sat and watched until he felt it was alright. And now, he had allowed his mind to wander off to what had happened.

He felt... off. Like there was something that he should have noticed that he had missed. Oh, he had gone over the obvious. For one thing, the place he had traversed through was certainly Harrys' mind, but there had been something else there, at least at the end. Something that knew him. Not Harry, although that was apparent, but him. They had used the form of his beloved to distract and confuse him, which would not have been possible if it had been only Harrys' thoughts. He had mentioned her, yes, but he had never told him anything about what she had looked, or sounded, or acted like. He had never, he was sure, mentioned Roland. There was also the fact that this person knew what the song she had always sung was, knew every note. He could sing it, yes, and he would never in a million years forget a note or a word, but he had never sung anything at all around Harry. Around anyone, for that matter, and not even when he was alone. He hadn't had much to sing about in his thousand-odd years since he was placed in this position. What he especially did not like was what had been said to him by the Harpy he had killed. The voice had taken on a second undertone, he thought, but he couldn't be sure now. Because it had all been a dream, or had at first attempted to be like one, some details were not clear. Everyone, when first waking up, can remember their dream clearly enough, but as time went on, details would vanish slowly, until all that was left were a few blurry images and maybe a snatch of words, or a noise you couldn't remember the cause of. It was both a blessing and a curse, he supposed. But... The most troubling aspect of the whole thing was this: How, and why, was it that the creature in question had been able to speak that language so clearly? As though they had been born speaking it? It hadn't been used in nearly fifteen hundred years or more. He had never told any of his more recent apprentices how to speak it, because it wasn't exactly a required language. In fact, it was nearly impossible to find any of it in writing still remaining, not unless you knew what very few of the right people there were, and even then, it had all already been translated, so what would be the point? Hell, he had written his first grimoire, the one Justin had used, in that language, but it had been translated into modern English ages before he had gotten hold of it. So... What, then? Did that mean that whomever it was that had spoken to him knew— Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no... The voice. The one he had been hearing, he knew who it was as soon as he heard it, and he had been speaking in... Oh, God.

"Bob?" came Morgans' voice. He snapped out of it and looked quickly up at him, preparing to stand.

"Yes?"

"Do me a favor. Keep an eye on him. He needs to rest, though I don't think sleeping again is wise, not so soon after that."

Bob stood. "Of course."

"Harry..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be fine, Morgan." He winced as he leaned back on the pillows again, which had been set up in such a way that he could sit up partially.

"I was coming to tell you that we need you off this case."

"What?" he said sharply, and hurt himself in an effort to sit up straighter. "Morgan, I can't just..."

"It's too dangerous, Dresden. We need you off. Besides, we can see to it that your cop friend gets any information she needs. We will allow it to continue in their hands for now, until we can conduct a more thorough investigation..."

"But, no, Morgan, look, I can't just back off this! I promised Murphy! Besides, right now, I may wind up with the only leads you can get! Morgan, please, don't just cut me off from this... Please."

A look passed between them. It was one Bob was familiar with. For all his hardened exterior, a good puppy face, however subtle, would always make the warden cave, even if he didn't know it himself. He supposed he must just be a bit soft on the inside, but never showed it, at least not to them. He absently wondered who, if anyone, he did show it to. There was a long pause. "Fine," he said quietly, and a look of triumph crossed Harrys' features. It was quick, not long enough for Morgan to notice, but Bob did. He would have smirked if he wasn't in such mental turmoil.

"But our previous agreement stands. You will give me any information you receive, and keep anything in regards to our world away from the lieutenants' ears. Do I make myself clear?" Harry almost protested, but his name in a warning tone from Morgan stopped him.

"Yeah. Okay."

"Thank you. I'll be checking on you in the morning."

"Ah, you don't need to— fine, fine..." The last part had been prompted by a glare.

"Good bye, Dresden. Bob."

Nods were shared, and he turned to go, but Harry interrupted him. "Hey, Morgan? Thanks."

He looked at him for a bit, then nodded and continued on his way.

Sighing, Harry leaned back again. He looked over at Bob, who was still lost in thought to a certain extent. He looked at him for a while, in fact, but not enough to cause any notice on Bobs' part. It was more of a way of thinking over what had happened than anything else, but there was that one nagging thing in the back of his mind. It hadn't shown up there in years, not since he was about seventeen, because he would never admit it. Being able to actually touch him had brought it back, though, and he now felt that he missed the short space of time they had had. He had missed it before, too, which was when he had finally been able to admit it to himself, since he understood what it was in full now. He mentally shook it into oblivion again, and it was as though he had never thought of it. Just like before.

"So..."

"Hm?" Bob had been thinking, and he looked up at him now and immediately erased the look he had been wearing, covering it with a smile.

"You never told me you knew how to fight."

He laughed, letting his thoughts slip away for now, to be contemplated later, when he wouldn't upset Harry with them. "Actually, I don't, not really. And I don't think that I was entirely myself in there, that may have been your doing... Thank you for making me so..." He waved his fingers in the air, demonstrating that he couldn't think of a word for it.

"Badass?" Harry supplied, grinning.

"Well. That isn't exactly the word I would have used, but..." He twinkled his eyes at him. "Thank you for that, yes."

"I don't think that was _all_ me..."

"Oh, no, the vast majority was. I will admit, though, that the way I used the staff when not for magical purposes was actually me. Or so I like to think."

"Really? What did you do when you were alive, fight off bandits in the woods?"

He laughed again, a much heartier one than before. "God, no, though I suppose I could have managed if there weren't a lot of them, and they weren't very much bigger than me. No, I could do that because my brother taught me, that's all. He was determined I learn something of use that didn't involve what I could do."

"You had a brother?"

"Yes. Thane. Raised me."

Harry looked at him questioningly.

He sighed, but it was the kind of sigh that meant he was slightly pleased. "Let me guess. You want to know about that?"

"Of course I do. Besides, I'm stuck in bed for a while. You might as well tell me a story, right?"

Bob smiled at him. "I didn't know you remembered those."

"Yup."

"Well... Very well..."

This was what he told him.

X

"When I was an infant, or at least this is what Thane told me... When I was an infant, the village we lived in became the target for a group of an enemies' army. They were planning on surprising our king by coming through all of the villages they came across and destroying them on their way to the castle, which they planned on besieging. I don't really know why, by the time I was old enough to be told it had all been over for quite some time. Anyway, both of our parents were incredibly powerful, so it was because of that that we were capable of what we were. Not at that time of course, like I said, I was a baby. He was... Oh... Ten or eleven, I suppose. We also had an older sister, Lauralie, who was nearer to seventeen or so, he thought. She and our father went to help defend the village, and before my mother went after them, she thrust me into my brothers' arms, wrapped in a blanket, which he kept for some reason, after, and... Told him to go and run into the woods nearby and not to stop until he got far away. She said to wait for one of them, that they would come for us. He took me, did as my mother said... And they never came. No one did.

Eventually, he decided that he was too frightened to go back, and that he would take care of me for our family, and began to walk onward, wherever his feet took him. He knew the basic direction to where the castle was, so he went that way. He said we were in that forest for probably a month or more, avoiding the enemy, but not finding anyone of use. He had gone out hunting with our father before, so he tried to get us some food. Said he was terrible at it at first, but figured it out to the best of his abilities later, but all we could even eat were rabbits and birds. He would throw rocks at them until he got one. I doubted it, but it was what he told me. He also said he found a lost goat wandering around, and would give me some of her milk to drink once he got her to start following us. I have no way of knowing whether or not this is true, of course, but, well... I wanted to know why we had no parents. He told me that.

After a while, we came to a party of our own kings' knights, and were lucky enough that one of them was kind to us, and brought us back to the palace. The king was a nice man, but he couldn't take us in. He didn't know what to do when it came to the training we would need when our abilities surfaced. My brother told him about our parents, so he knew it would happen. As far as I know, that part was true. The part about us coming out of the woods with a small hunting party and such, and my brother being able to warn the king of the approaching army, who apparently thought they didn't like the forest and had gone around it. The only way I know it was true was because it was told to me by the knight who found us, and by the man who raised us from then on out. He was a trusted consort of the king, and he was also a sorcerer, you see, so he had given us to him to be properly looked after. He was good to us. We were very lucky to find so many kind people back then. In any case, on top of my normal training, my brother could see that I wasn't very good at defending myself, so he decided to teach me how to use a staff. It started when I was about six, which he thought was too young to be using a sword, and he trained me quite well. God, it used to make our teacher laugh, but he was nice about it.

Anyway, well... I was raised jointly by both of them. So... That's why I do know at least a little bit about fighting with a staff, though I've never been very good at anything else. I mean, the only thing I ever used a knife for was food, and carving wood. Not much there.

That's all, really."

X

"That's pretty cool, Bob."

"No, no, Far from it. I can assure you, there are plenty of things you could hear about that were much... Cooler." He smiled. He had moved a bit during his story, and now he was close to the bed again. Harry didn't mind.

"So... Raised by your brother and a sorcerer, huh? Must have been fun."

"It had it's moments."

"Who was your teacher, anyways?"

"Hm? Oh, well... He called himself Duncan. From Scotland, big man, bushy beard, tanned face. Looked a bit like Santa Claus, I suppose, but with more gray in his hair, and bit of black."

"'Kay. Cool. But... What do you mean he called himself? That wasn't his name?"

"Well, it might have been. Must have been, I suppose."

Harry looked at him questioningly. "You suppose?"

"Yes. You see, there was never anything to prove it, but, well..." He shrugged dismissively. "There were rumors going about that said we were being trained by Merlin."


	9. Chapter 9

Yoness! I has returned for you! Sorry it took so long, but I got stuck on how to write this. Anyways, I'm back now, so here you go!

ch. 9

Harry stared at him. "What?" He said quietly, awed.

"They thought he was Merlin. The people who lived around us, I mean. I don't really know what triggered it..." Bob said, shrugging.

"No way, really?"

"Well... I don't think he was. The kings' name was Albrecht. It wasn't Arthur."

Harry sat up as best he could, and Bob almost reached to help him sit, but had to stifle a grumble. "But, they thought he was? That's the coolest thing I've ever heard."

Bob chuckled. "No, I don't think it would be. Now, stop getting excited, you'll hurt yourself. You aren't in any condition to—"

There was a knock at the door downstairs, and then it opened. Bob went stiff, and a look Harry didn't recognize came over him. He was about to ask what was wrong, suddenly concerned, but then Murphys' voice came from downstairs. The immediate look of relief that followed didn't really help him be any less concerned, but he didn't ask anything and answered her instead, not taking his eyes off Bob until he disappeared, nodding at him.

Murphy came up the stairs and looked at the man in the bed, who just now was taking his eyes off of... well, nothing that she could see. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Oh, uh... You know, just some guys I had to beat up."

"Uh-huh." She raised an eyebrow at him.

He tried to make himself look more comfortable, and smiled. "So. What brings you to my bedroom?"

She gave him a look, but no words to accompany it. Instead, she said, "I just thought you might have some idea of what just happened a few blocks away from here."

Ah. "What happened a few blocks away?"

"That's what I just asked you. We aren't sure, but it looks like something went down in one of the old warehouses down there. The windows and doors have been blown out, and there's damage done inside, too. Got a call from someone who said that he had an idea there might be some kind of gang thing we might want to look into."

"And you think I know what happened?"

"Well, I just got here to ask you about the case we're on, and decided to see if you had any ideas. 'Course now you're sitting here, looking like you just went through hell, and you're saying you look like that because you had to beat someone up?"

"It was just a joke, Murph, I just don't feel well, that's all."

"Sure."

"Hey, you know, someday, you're going to have to accept the fact that I don't actually cause _all _the weird shit that goes on to happen, you know." He smiled. "Anyways, I have no idea what went on, I've been asleep." Well, that was a lie. He knew exactly what had happened, and it had, in fact, involved him... He was lucky he had no lie twitches, as he called them. "Maybe you should talk to the guy who called? I mean, don't you consider it suspect if somebody calls you up to warn you about something that's about to go down?"

"Yes, we do. Problem is, he didn't give a name, and the trace I had done led to a disposable phone. No way to find out who owns it, or did. The signal went out halfway through our trace."

Interesting... "Well, then, I think you should look into him."

"Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious."

"Know anything about him through the call? Like, where it sounded like he was?"

She shrugged and thought back. "Well... There weren't any background noises to speak of. It seemed almost too quiet behind there, Kirmani pointed that out. He sounded youngish, had a sort of lilt to his voice, like a girl would have almost. And he had a weird accent, maybe... British? Hard to tell, could have been Irish, too, or something in between there."

"Huh. Okay."

Behind a nearby wall, Bobs' eyes slowly closed, and he leaned his head back. The look on his face went from worry to certainty, and then to utter despair.

"That's all I made out. Took him a while to tell us, and then he hung up right after the call reached the length we would need to trace it, like he timed it so we would. I don't know why a guy would _want _his call traced, I mean, what, he wanted us to find him?"

"I would ask if you did, but, well..."

"Oh, we know the area. The closest tower to where his call came in from would make it somewhere near the mall, but it doesn't make much sense because there wasn't any noise in the background. So for right now, we have nothing."

"Except that file in your hand."

Looking as though she were confused for a second, she blinked, realizing she had forgotten all about it. "Oh, yeah. No, this is just the kids' medical files. We were asked by the boss to look into them. I was heading back to the precinct when I got called for the warehouse."

Harry held out a hand. "May I?"

She pulled it away from him. "No. Not until I look at them first, and then you need to tell me what you have, if anything."

Well, way to make it difficult. "Alright, fine."

There was a pause. "Well?" Murphy said, looking insistently at him.

"Well, right now you're sitting on my bed, and I think it'd be better if we went downstairs so I can have some water."

She blinked again, looked down, laughed, and then stood, helping him up.

She brought him downstairs, where he told her what he now knew, or at least what he was allowed to tell her he knew. Bob didn't follow, but he listened, even though he really didn't want to know.

"I can't tell you much," Harry began, getting some water, "But I can tell you the kids are sacrifices of some kind."

"What?" All seriousness now. So much for her being in a good mood...

"Uh... Yup."

"Sacrifices." He nodded. "Harry..."

"I know, I know. Thing is, I have no idea what they're sacrifices for. I just know that's what they're being used as."

"So... What, you're telling me that somebody's killing these innocent kids to make some God happy?"

"Possibly." He sat down on the edge of a desk.

"That's insane!"

"Well... He has killed people, hasn't he?"

She gave him a careful look. "Point taken... Okay, so is that all?"

"Uh, no. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I've been told that he's looking for something, something powerful. I haven't even been given hints about it. Just that it's an object."

"Harry, that isn't any help at all!"

"It's all I got right now, but I am looking in to it, alright? I haven't stopped that."

"Where are you getting this stuff from, anyway?"

"Some people I know."

"Can I talk to these people?"

"Nope."

There was silence, during which he calmly sipped his glass of water, and she stared at him in exasperation. "Is there a reason for that?"

"Just my freaky stuff. That's all. I'm not allowed to tell you who." When she took a breath and was about to protest, he continued. "Hey, hey... I would love nothing more to tell you, alright? Believe me, I would. But I'm really not allowed to. You know how this stuff works."

She sighed, and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, then let out an irritated chuckle, shaking her head. "This is just ridiculous, Harry."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."

"Anything else you can't tell me, or am I wasting breath asking that question?"

He though about this. "No, you aren't wasting your breath... But right now, that's all I got. Apparently, whatever it is he's after is important to him, and it gets him whatever he wants, but I have no idea what that means yet, and I definitely haven't been given the slightest clue about what it even looks like."

"Great. So there's a murderer killing kids for sacrifices, and it's all over some object you have no ideas about. Perfect."

She stood to leave. "Look, Murph, I'm sorry, okay? I'm trying here, I just haven't got very far. If I get any further, I really will let you know, alright?"

She looked at him for a few minutes as though studying him carefully. Eventually, she sighed again, in defeat this time, and handed him the folder. When he reached for it, thanking her, she snatched it away for a second, and looked him in the face. He carefully avoided looking in her eyes in as subtle a way as possible. Accidental soul-gazing was not something he wanted to deal with right now, or ever when it came to the lieutenant. "I need these right back."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And don't keep anything new from me."

"Of course not, if I can avoid it." This earned him a less than pleased expression, but she handed him the file anyway. Without another word, she left.

Closing the door after her, Harry turned, and snorted. "Not even a goodbye? Somebody's pissed." He had been speaking, in general, to Bob, but he noticed he didn't seem to have appeared out of nowhere after she left, as was usually the case. Thinking nothing much of this, he sat back on the couch and flipped open the file. Medical nonsense would be of no use here, at least it was unlikely to help, but he might as well check, just in case.

"Harry?" Bobs' voice was unusually quiet, and when he looked up, the look on his face worried him.

"Yeah?" he said, looking at him with concern.

He didn't say anything at first, and it looked like he was struggling with something, but eventually he cleared his throat, the weird expression he'd had on going away as though he had decided against something, and said, "Uh... What's that?"

"Oh, this? Medical files on the kids. You weren't listening?"

"... No. Not really."

"Are you okay, Bob?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, I'm just, um... I don't really think those will help us very much."

"Probably not, but it won't hurt to look, right?"

"No, I suppose not." He tried a smile, and it seemed to work well enough, because Harry went back to look at what he was holding. The problem was, he could tell he wanted to say something more, most likely ask him again if he was alright, but he didn't. He had probably given up.

They sat in silence for some time, Harry contemplating the files, and Bob just watching him, when an idea that he had been playing with came into his head. "Harry, I think... I have an idea."

Harry looked up at him quizzically. "You think you have an idea?"

He gave him a small apologetic smile. "I have something I'd like to try."

"Okay. What is it?"

Silence for almost a full minute as they looked at each other.

"Well... I haven't been of much help just yet, aside from the obvious, so I think I might like to see if I can take a trip through the radio frequencies and see what I can pick up there. If you think that might work, that is."

If he thought it might work? Since when was that a question? "It hasn't let us down before... Who were you planning to find?"

"I'm not really planning on finding anyone specifically, not as such, but I thought perhaps I could, um... Chat a few people up as I go and see what I can make of it."

He nodded. "Sounds good. Let me know if you find anything out." He went back to the files. Bob waited for a minute or so. "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't go yet."

"Why not?"

Bob rolled his eyes. "Because the radio is off. I can't turn it on?"

"Oh! Oh, right, sorry..." He got up and turned on the old fifties radio on the mantle.

"Thank you," Bob said with a slight nod. He then went to stand in front of it for a moment, and closed his eyes. "Oh, Harry?"

Harry stopped going back to the couch and looked at him.

He gave him a soft grin. "Please don't fall asleep while I'm gone. Just in case."

Harry returned the smirk. "Alright. Promise."

"Good." For a moment, it looked as though he wanted to say something else, but then he changed his mind, nodded and disappeared into the radio, leaving Harry to stand and look at where he had been in confusion and concern. He didn't think their time in his head had really done anything to him, not that he could tell. So... Honestly...

What the hell was wrong with Bob?


	10. Chapter 10

Hello, again, and welcome to a new chapter of this story! I'm sorry for taking so long, writers block is a bitch... Also, I'm having second thoughts about a Sherlock fic I'm writing, but I don't think anyone cares, and I have no idea why I'm writing that... Oh, and my little brother is now officially a marine! Yay! You don't care, anyways! Man, I'm bored... anywho, here goes nothin'!

ch. 10

Harry found himself alone. Worried, and alone. He hated that. It would be very nice if he could have gone with Bob into the radio, but then again, he'd have to be dead, and then what good could he do?

He could tell something was wrong. The problem was, he didn't know if he wanted to ask him about it or not. The Merlin thing, though, that was the kicker. He didn't like coming back to it when everything else seemed so uncomfortable, but it kept popping back into his head. Repeatedly. Eventually, it consumed his thoughts to the point that he couldn't continue looking at the medical files in his hands, and decided ultimately that he was going to look some stuff up about him while Bob was gone. If everyone thought he was being trained by the man, there had to be more than just presumption, right? To the books, then.

Dropping the files on the table in front of him, he got up and went to the lab. From the shelves within, he pulled down every book he could think of that had some sort of mention of Merlin or even Arthur in it. He found a lot. Way too much, in fact, but he thought he might be able to handle looking some things up before Bob got back if he could just figure out the most important bits. Some books didn't have much to say about him, other than what everyone knew. He could see the future, he was the one that told Uther what to do with Arthur when he was a baby, got the sword in the stone set up, had him pull it out, yadda yadda, and so on and so forth. Apparently, he was capable of things Harry had never even heard of otherwise. But it wasn't anything no one else knew about to some degree.

And then... He was gone.

There was a huge amount of conflicting stories in regards to this. The lady from the lake, who had given Arthur Excalibur, on Merlins' request, of course, apparently seduced him so that she could learn his spells, and then imprisoned him... Somewhere. There was the idea that he was in the sky, or the water, or that he was trapped in a tree somewhere, and then there was the most believable one, which was that he died in battle and was buried somewhere near Arthur, so that he could return with him when it was time for them to come back.

But all of these things pointed in the same direction. That he was just... _gone_. Since the records he had weren't in the best condition or order, he couldn't tell when this happened, though, so he had no real way of telling if it actually had been true. Of course, if he really had intentionally blacked himself out for whatever reason, and had changed his name to Duncan, then wouldn't people still have recognized him? Unless it had happened so long before then that no one remembered what he looked like... But if that was so, then how old was he, exactly? Was he immortal or something? There wasn't anything that said that...

He gave up. The only way he might be able to find anything out about him that wasn't already known or skewed in all sorts of different directions would be to look into the Records. And now the only person he knew of who could look into them and who would do so at his request was dead. Or at least gone. A new surge of anger welled up at this thought, and he clenched a hand into a fist. He was going to find who had commissioned those things to do what they did, and he was going to make them pay.

His anger made him slam one of the books he'd been perusing shut, and it caused some others to fall on the floor. Groaning, he bent to pick them up. He had gotten most of them through inheritance, and had kept as many as he had because he wanted to burn as few as possible. He had felt at the time that he had to burn Bobs' grimoire so that he himself wouldn't be tempted to use it, and also because he was of the opinion that his uncle had used so much of it's contents that they might as well have been written by him. In hindsight, he did feel sort of bad for burning it, but it was something he couldn't reverse.

As a result of his inheriting the books instead of buying them, some were incredibly old. This was emphasized by the fact that one of them, the one that hit the floor hardest, fell apart, and some of it's pages flew away from it, across the floor. He sighed, put the others back on the table, and then began the laborious process of finding the pages and putting them back in order, which really sucked, since they weren't even numbered, which showed the age of the book right there. After what felt like an hour or more, he was about to put that book back on the table as well, until he noticed something. Two or three of the pages had slid under a nearby bookshelf. Thinking nothing of this, he went to retrieve these as well, and then saw something that caught his eye. Behind the shelves, jammed between the back of the lowest one and the wall, was a small, dusty volume of something. He stared at it for a bit, not sure why. It was probably one of the ones he had had, but never read, so it shouldn't really matter, but he just kept staring at it. Glancing up at the desk, he placed the papers on top of the book that had lost them, and then reached as far back as his arm would stretch, having to keep the rest of his body flat just to go far enough. When he could just brush it with the tips of his fingers, but couldn't reach any further, he let out a puff of air, then focused a spell at it so it flew to his hand. Flew being a metaphorical word, of course, he just made it un-stick itself and move forward a few centimeters.

Looking at it in slight confusion, he got back up, turning it over in his hands. It was about the right size and shape for a journal of sorts, and it looked incredibly old. There were no markings on it, and the binding consisted of a few cords holding it together. The back cover was missing. There was only one loose page here, and he found himself carefully opening the book to that page in order to put it back. As he did this, the page opposite this one caught his eye. There was a drawing here, something he had never seen before.

In the bottom corner, and occasionally at the ends of some little lines pointing to various different parts of the object, like a diagram, were a few letters in a writing he felt he recognized. He couldn't place where he had seen it before, though, or what the letters were. They were partially faded, and hard to make out beyond a certain point. The drawing, however, was interesting, and he wanted to know what exactly it was here for. It was just a piece of jewelry. He glared at the letters in the corner, and at the ones around the picture, as though willing them to translate themselves.

When this had no effect, he dropped it on the table in annoyance, and decided to go back to his search about all things Merlin, in case he had missed something, struck by a sudden inexplicable urge to continue.

X

_Traveling through radio waves was a strange state to be in. He was still aware of himself, of course, but there was also the knowledge that he was no longer in his usual form. This was not a problem. He went on._

_It was possible to get to know other spirits through this method of travel, and over the years, Bob was pleased to say he had made some friends here and there, though there were not very many. Normally, if he wasn't so worried, or if the situation weren't so urgent, he might have stopped to visit some of the __others, or even messed around with some ghost hunting team using a spirit box, or whatever they called them. Those little things that scanned a few hundred radio stations at exactly the same time, normally resulting in what was just a lot of loud noise resembling static, unless some spirit or other got bored or wanted to convey a message. In that case, they would talk to them through the waves in question, and sometimes the result of this was hilarious, depending on who was listening, or what they had said. Usually a lot of cries of oh my God and jumping around in some cases... Stupid, really, but fun all the same._

_Right now, however, he had no interest in this. He was looking for some sign of anything at all that might tell him what was going on. He was worried, however, that he didn't need to look for it, that he already knew exactly what he was looking for. Eventually, to his shock, he found it after about an hour of traveling._

_They had kept the radio on here for a reason. _

_He knew that._

_In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if they had done so to find him, not at all. Someone would be expecting him, if he knew. And he suspected that he did. They were waiting for him._

_He would make no noise, and would try to enter their wavelength as subtly as he possibly could. He had no real choice, if he wanted to ultimately confirm his fears._

_It was on the lowest volume setting. It was sitting on a shelf of some sort, in a building that was either abandoned or simply empty at the moment. He could not see the same way he did back home, but in a sort of haze. Dark shapes against a fuzzy background, like a television that wasn't on the right setting._

_There was a man in a chair. He was tied to it, and didn't appear to be conscious. Being extremely careful, he reached the signal out a tad bit more, just enough so he could tell something about the person. It was the equivalent of hiding behind a wall, or in a closet, and peering out between the slats or around the corner. He was pleased to note that it didn't seem to make any noise. He did his best to try to figure out who he was looking at. If the recent fight in the alley was any indication, he had an idea... Yes. He had only met the man once, maybe twice, and did not know him well, but he could recall the feeling of what he was. Fay, approximately three hundred or so years old, and currently bleeding a bit, very weak, and barely awake. Chris. He had found Harrys' friend._

_He waited. _

_He knew they were expecting him. The radio wouldn't be on if they weren't. He simply would have to try and make it so they didn't know he was here. Finding him would be very bad, indeed._

_It was some time before anyone came in. He toned himself down, ducking behind his metaphorical wall. He listened and watched the static._

_And there he was. He was alone as far as he could tell. Normally, he would have thought that foolish, but he knew him too well for that. He stood in front of Chris and spoke._

"_You really thought you could help him? Really?" Whatever was said in response to this was too weak for him to hear. "What? Sorry?" He crouched down in front of the chair and looked up into the face __above his. "Say again?"_

_God, his voice was weak... "I did. He knows."_

"_Oh, DOES_ _he? All of it?"_

"_Yes."_

_He looked down, probably licking his lips the way he sometimes did when annoyed. It was disgusting to Bob that he could still remember this all well enough to picture it. He looked back up, and grabbed his face, ignoring the whimper this resulted in._

"_I don't think you di-id," he said, the last word in a singsong voice. "No, I don't think you told him EVERYTHING_ _at ALL, sir." He shook his head, then got up very quickly, violently jerking Chris' head to the side as he let go of him. He began walking about the room, coming very close to the radio, and it was all Bob could do not to angrily try to jump the man, which, in his current state, would have been impossible to do in any case. The more he heard him speak, the more angry he became, now that he was here in front of him. And yet, he was still irrevocably afraid of him as well. Damn him._

"_Because, you see, if you had told him absolutely everything, then he would have figured it out by now, wouldn't he, Aeolith? Yes, he would have, and then that wouldn't have been at all pleasant for any of us, I should think. I mean, we would still win, but it wouldn't play out even remotely the same way as I would have liked."_

_That was how he could hold him. The man knew his real name... How the hell had he figured that one out?_

"_You won't win," Chris said hoarsely, "The others will see to that."_

_The man stopped somewhere, picking at something on a shelf or a bureau of some kind. He laughed._

"_You honestly think that they'll even try? I have the leash in my hand, they can't do a damned thing! All I have to do with some of them is say that they have a lovely wife, or husband, or child, or any other relative they care for in the right tone of voice, and give them a taste of what I can do, and they shut right up and do exactly as I say. It's quite easy, you know, treating them like the cattle they are. So simple..."_

"_That means nothing. There are others who can stop you."_

"_Oh, PLEASE!_ _You are bleeding and tied to a CHAIR! Now is no time to bother with that sort of thing, darling, really it isn't. Especially since you helped me get started in the first place, don't you think? Little bit... Oh, what's the word..." He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the word he had wanted to use._

"_You tricked me! I would NEVER_ _have done ANY_ _of that had I known!"_

"_Oh, now, see you made me forget the word I was going to use... Oh, but you know what I meant, don't you? Of course you do." _

_Silence, probably accompanied by a glare of some kind._

_With a small laugh that suggested he was giving a tight-lipped smile, he went back to the man on the chair and crouched in front of him again. "You're in my band, now, Aeolith. Whether you want to be or not, and I suggest you stick to it lest you loose everything you ever had."_

"_What I have means nothing to me. Not now."_

_There was an ominous pause. "No," he said quietly, "I don't see how it could. But I can MAKE_ _it worth something to you. All I need is the last bit of information needed to get what I want. All you have to do is tell me how to get it. That's it. You can travel between worlds as you please, I, despite my power, cannot, and all I need you to do is fetch me the last bit." During this speech, he had stood up, and was walking about again. Now he came back to the chair and paused next to it to whisper in it's occupants' ear. "I can give you your precious sister. I can bring her back. I can give you that one thing, that one, little thing, that means so very much to you. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"_

"_...Yes."_

"_I knew you would. And I can get that one thing for you if you just... Tell me..."_

_He looked right into his eyes, never, ever a good idea with people like this, and said, very certainly, "No."_

_Clearly, he was shocked. But he did a very good job of coming back from this. A pause, which never meant anything pleasant, and then he straightened out. More silence for a bit, and then, "Fine. Very well. But I'm sure we can come to some agreement sooner or later." Back in his face again, from the front. "I would normally kill you now, boy. But... I think I'll keep you for just a little longer... I might need you for bait... It's alright, though. I have other ways of getting the Amulet." He stood as he said this, and then Bob went cold, if that was at all possible, as he turned and looked directly at the radio... And smiled. "Very good ways... In fact."_

_He saw him. He didn't know how, but he saw him, and he knew just where he had to look to be looking directly into where his eyes would be. He backed away, and shot off as fast as he was allowed. He needed to get back to Harry, and he needed to explain to him what he could... He knew what he was after now, and he knew what it would cause._

X

Once he was far enough out, the man who had smiled at the radio dropped a shield that had been up, just the right kind to keep the ghost from sensing the other presence in the room.

"Follow him. Confirm their location is exactly where it's said to be, and then asses what type of defenses are in use, if any. If you must observe for a few days, keep it to as few as possible. Then come back here and inform me. We'll move from there." As he said this, he put on a coat from a nearby rack, and now, finishing putting on the gloves that went with it, he left the room.

The entity did as it was told.


	11. Chapter 11

Hi there, dearest readers! I am back, and I do apologize for any inconvenience my change of name has caused you, I just didn't want to have the same one I've had from when I was, like, fifteen or however old I was when I started this... It needed to be done. In any case, this is the next chapter of this, so please read and enjoy! Sorry for the shortness, though... Ta!

ch.11

Bob came back from the radio in such a hurried manner that it made him stumble a few steps forward. "Harry?" he called, noticing that he was no longer on the couch.

"In here, Bob, check this out!"

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he went to the lab, trying to voice some sort of beginning to the conversation he knew he would have to have. "Harry, listen to me, we have a — What are you doing?"

Harry apparently had failed to hear the change in tone when he said that, and continued to not notice anything else, as he eagerly said, hopping up with an open book in his hands, "Look at this, Bob! Did you know Gandalf was actually _real_? Isn't that awesome?" He was ridiculously happy about this. Bob had forgotten they were among his favorite books...

"Yes, I met him once or twice, rather nice man, in fact, but listen to me —"

"No way, did you really?"

He sighed. "Yes, Harry, really. Now would you kindly tell me just what it is that you think you are doing?"

Harry stopped being cheerful in an instant, confusion replacing his features. Bob sounded angry, but not in the sense that he was yelling, just in the sense that he might be yelling soon. "Uh... I... I was just looking at some stuff about..."

"Merlin?" This response was snapped out, given when Bob went over to the tables to look at the books.

"Yeah..."

"Don't bother, Harry. Do not even bother."

"...Bob?" Why was he angry all of a sudden?

"Don't you think you should be looking into the case? The actual case, not simply a childish notion that I may have put into your head entirely unnecessarily?"

"What the hell is your problem all of a sudden?"

Bob blinked. Damn. He hadn't meant to be angry... "I... Don't know. I'm sorry, Harry, I simply... Look, this notebook? This one right here? Please... Don't ever read it."

"Why not?" It was his turn to be angry now. "Why can't I read it, huh? What is it, your personal diary, or something?"

Bob went quiet, thought this out, and said, in complete honesty, "Yes."

Harry had no idea what to say to this, and blinked in surprise. He lowered his arms, which had come up slightly when he spoke, and just looked at him.

"Please, Harry. There are things in this book that I... do not wish you to know. I understand that I haven't even taught you the language written in it, but that doesn't mean you won't find a means of translating it, so... Please. Don't read it."

"What could possibly be in there that I don't already know you did? And how come I still have it?"

"Perhaps, for whatever reason, it was not destroyed with the remainder of my things when I was punished. And there are many things in it that neither you, nor anyone else has ever heard of me doing."

They stood in silence for some time, Bob looking worried and apologetic, Harry just continuing to be confused, albeit in a quieter way. "Okay." he said at length, quietly.

"Thank you, Harry. And I'm sorry I shouted."

He tried to snort, but his heart wasn't in it. "You hardly _shouted_, Bob."

Bob smiled, and when asked what he had found out, after a few moments of awkward silence, he opened his mouth to say that it would take some explaining, and that he should probably listen very carefully... But was interrupted by the sound of Harrys' cat, Mister, asking to be let in from the front door. Harry sighed, announced that he was coming, and went to let him in, replacing the book he had been holding on a table.

It was then that something occurred to him, as Harry promptly obeyed the face that his pet gave him, and went to pour the cat some food. He didn't want Harry to know what he would no doubt have to explain to him if he told him only what the man was after. He would have to explain how he knew what the object in question was, he would have to then backtrack farther and farther to continue everything... And he had just told Harry he didn't want him reading what was in his journal. Which was true. Which meant that... Oh, Gods... He groaned inwardly. So, Hrothbert of Bainbridge, he asked himself, what will it be? Divulge all your secrets to him, which would undoubtedly make his opinion of you change drastically, which you do not want in the least, or tell him nothing, which would make him suspicious? What could you tell him without it leading to other things?

"So... Find anything out on the wavelengths?" Harry came back in, a sandwich in hand. It wasn't much, just bologna and cheese. He would have to go shopping soon.

There was a pause before Bob answered. "I found Chris." He couldn't be told. Not yet. It was much too soon for any of that to come to light.

Harry nearly dropped his sandwich. "What?"

"Chris, Harry. I found him. He was being... spoken to, or rather, spoken _at_ by... Someone. I couldn't see his face." He could have slapped himself for this. Childish, Bob, he thought, simply childish.

Harry was instantly demanding answers. "You did? He's alive? Where is he, where did they take him?"

Bob was about to answer that he had no idea,but that, yes, he was still alive, and could he please stop firing off so many questions at once, it was making him very nervous, thank you very much, but he was cut off by Kirmani, Murphys' partner, coming in the door. Harry whirled around, and Bob resigned himself to backing off and going silent.

"Kirmani?" he called, going to the living room and giving him a concerned look. "Don't you ever knock?"

"Funny," was the response, and he looked at him in annoyance. "Murphy says she's sorry for calling you back so soon and on such short notice, but she just got a call. Another kid."

"Another one?"

"Yeah. Just found." He looked uneasy about something, though, like he wanted to say more, but was unsure if he should.

In the other room, Bob stiffened. He was getting desperate if there were more...

"What else?"

Kirmani pursed his lips, struggling. "It's... It happened in a hospital."

"What?"

"A hospital. There were other kids in the room, they were having naps."

Harry felt sick to his stomach. "Oh, God... Did they see it happen?"

"Yeah..."

"Jesus... Alright, gimme a second." Kirmani nodded, and waited for Harry to get his things together. As Harry went to get his new wand, a newer drumstick, from the lab, Bob said something unexpected.

"Take me with you, Harry."

"_What?_"

"Take me with you. I can look into it, see where whatever did this came from. You said that at the last ones' house, the wall in the closet caused your crystal to act strangely, didn't you?"

"Bob, there are gonna be other people there, I can't just show up and let you out!"

"I understand that, but it will be a crime scene, which means that they will have moved other patients and the nurses and such somewhere else, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but, Bob..."

"Harry, I have been next to useless during this entire investigation, and I wish to make myself useful! As I said, they may evacuate the room, as is expected, but you will most likely not be permitted to return to it after they've cleaned up, which is where I would be able to come in normally, as such..."

"Bob!"

"Harry, please! Take. Me. With you. _Please_."

This entire conversation had been carried out in hushed whispers, but it seemed it all got even quieter during the long stare that was shared between them, Bob pleading with his eyes, and Harry being completely confused and concerned about the consequences.

At length, Harry said, "Fine. But how do you expect me to bring you in, huh? Under my shirt?"

"You don't have one on..."

Oh, yeah... "But, still, Bob, how?"

"The usual way will suffice. And I think we both know how you can get round security footage, there will no doubt be cameras inside..."

Another stare, silent, but full of questions and comments.

"Alright. But you better be quick about going back in your skull if someone comes back in."

And, about five minutes later, they were being driven to the hospital in question by Kirmani, Harry trying to look as innocent as possible while holding a gym bag, which he had never brought to a crime scene before, and Bob, fearfully contemplating the situation in his skull.

Kirmani had wisely chosen not to ask what was in the bag.


End file.
